MedTech Series x Servita
The healthcare landscape is constantly evolving, with many NHS Trusts in the UK looking to adapt and embrace the new technologies that are becoming available. However, an abundance of legacy systems paired with the siloed nature of NHS Trusts, is leading to a disjointed and inefficient approach to development. Too often Trusts are reinventing the wheel, developing solutions (with all the costs, resources, and carbon footprint that comes with it) that to a certain extent already exist in one or multiple Trusts, rather than utilising and adapting these to their needs.
NHS TODAY, SPORTSTECH TOMORROW: BUILDING MULTI-FACETED SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS
With Servita
Servita has been supporting the NHS on its digital journey for several years, bringing with them a new perspective on how problems can be addressed with innovative solutions, and making sure that the latest technology available on the market is being applied so they can operate as efficiently as possible.
Servita is looking to address the duplicating digital development across Trusts. Servita has developed SOPHI (Servita Online Platform for Health Integration) which draws similarities to Lego blocks with each block representing common components that can be replicated and implemented into any solution. Servita is utilising the SOPHI methodology with their partners in the NHS. One example would be Health Call, a non-profit, NHS-owned organisation based in the North East.
MedTech Collaboration
Servita is an international consultancy deploying a range of services to promote digital transformation, including the delivery of software. The primary market that they occupy is healthcare, utilising their expertise in providing connectivity and integration for healthcare services, alongside applying AI and machine learning capabilities to data processing.
For the past 10 years, Servita has been supporting the NHS on its digital transformation journey.
Halston Group spoke to Matt Visser, Head of Product at Servita who has been helping reinvent how the NHS approaches digital builds.
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“We have been trying to find new ways of solving long-term problems that the NHS has by utilising cutting-edge technology. The NHS as an organisation as with many public sector organisations doesn’t lend itself to rapid innovation. We can’t change that, but what we can do is consult with our knowledge of external solutions from other countries or sectors and how they can apply these innovations in a way they may not have considered before or not necessarily been executed with modern techniques. A good example of this would be the aggregator that enables secondary care appointments to be shown in the NHS app, this couldn’t have happened 10 years ago, and needed a new set of eyes to come in with a renewed vision of what the current space looks like. 10 years ago, to achieve this you would have had to integrate with 260 hospital Trusts and possibly over 500 sites, but now there are many shared services from the commercial sector, and these could be used as the hook, meaning we could integrate to significantly fewer points, in a 50th of the time and achieve the same result. Not only this, the approach is much cheaper and greener. Our methodology stands on the shoulders of existing suppliers rather than dealing with reverse integration into the infrastructure after a solution has been built. We try to find novel ways of building solutions, investigating alternative areas of the market that might have been overlooked, taking a very centrist mindset.”
Matt Visser – Servita
SOPHI – A REUSABLE APPROACH TO TECHNOLOGY
“As a software supplier primarily to the NHS, it’s vital that we provide services they can reuse time again to lower costs for the health service. We have found in the NHS that it’s common for tenders to have very similar requirements and it’s much more efficient to have specific microservices which can be plumbed together, bespoke to customer needs. Were not talking about a generic platform which can be configured though, our aim is to allow for the specific requirements of an organisation by building specific microservices which do specific jobs well – which can be ‘lego-bricked’ together and cater for specific customer needs as their own single product.
For example, one microservice could be a patient API that tracks admitted patients, another being an appointment API which handles bookings, or a correspondence API which handles all patient letters. Then if a Trust comes to us and asks for a patient app, we can simply wrap the existing services together with a bespoke brand interface and deliver the solution in a rapid turnaround of months or even weeks. Essentially these are components that can be reused and recycled. It already has given us so much flexibility.
We began with a single patient engagement platform but working with our partners we have been able to rapidly flex that into a Virtual Ward solution, Questionnaire service, Notification and Messaging services and Integration Engine tooling – providing a single front-door to all services. All of which are built using – where possible – reusable components which can be utilised needed.”