• Smart technologies have enhanced care delivery. Widespread use of AI-enabled technologies have enhanced services such as pharmacy dispensing, ambulance, radiology and pathology. Virtual command centres manage customer relationships.
• Telehealth services enable continuous RPM. HCPs are alerted if a patient’s condition deteriorates (at home or in hospital) as data is transmitted via the cloud and displayed through real-time dashboards.
• One-stop shop community health hubs. These partner with voluntary, private, health and social care sectors to provide high-quality clinical services such as preventative, rehabilitation and minor urgent care.

• Skills and talent. Multidisciplinary teams collaborate across organisational boundaries. New models of education and training equip staff to use digital technologies, AI and genomics to design services around the patient.
• Funding. Integrated care budgets support population health management. Data driven funding models attracted new stakeholders, driving innovation across the health ecosystem including telehealth services and social prescribing to support equality of access to digital solutions.
• Regulation. Regulators support innovation while promoting public/provider safety. They work with organisations to develop products/solutions based on a security-by-design mind-set and a trustworthy data-exchange framework. Compliance with robust cyber security standards has reduced risks, despite more people using connected medical devices.
• Data and interoperability. Data science and cloud technologies has improved the security, completeness and quality of health and behavioural data. Agreed interoperability standards accelerate data sharing among stakeholders. 5G, cloud and edge computing (and AI algorithms) provide the scale and speed to drive the new virtual health ecosystem.

• Ohio State University’s (OSU) Wexner Medical Center uses bedside tablets that act as virtual care assistants for patients and relatives. The tablet, with the OSUMyChart application, allows patients to see their EHRs, ask questions, view test results, and schedule appointments. Patients can set medication alarms, schedule visits by physicians and relatives, view test results, or read educational material about their diagnosis. Patients can also make minor requests for water, snacks, and even for help going to the toilet, without using a nurse call button.
• HBKiCare, home-monitoring solution jointly marketed by the UAE and Israel. Soon to be released, HBKiCare is a “universal remote healthcare IoT platform” and home care kit. It enables “continuous patient monitoring with maximum flexibility and affordability”, recording electrocardiogram, temperature, pulse, blood oxygen and pressure measurements.

Healthcare providers have implemented a major transformation, reorganising services and training staff to work in new ways in unfamiliar teams.

World-wide, there’s been an acceleration in the virtual healthcare technology being adopted, with new ways of working keeping patients safe remotely (e.g. virtual consultations, RPM, and apps/wearable devices for disease monitoring/intervention).

New business models have also been rapidly developed, with medical leaders and hospital boards collaborating with private providers to create the right infrastructure. This includes the tools and training to enable a digital-first health ecosystem to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19.

Between 2018 and 2019, Moorfields Eye Hospital A&E department/satellite clinics treated 100,000 patients. But COVID 19 created two huge challenges: how to manage critical emergencies while minimising hospital visits; and how to provide patient care without the disruption leading to harm or loss of vision. A national roll out of video consultations across the Moorfields network was adopted covering drop ins and scheduled appointments.