Healthcare - March 2023

Join the must-see virtual event disrupting procurement and supply chain on the 28th of June 2023.

This year, we are bringing you a solely virtual event, Procurement & SupplyChain LIVE Virtual will highlight the innovators changing the industry. Brought to you by BizClik, Procurement & SupplyChain LIVE Virtual will be held on 28th June 2023, streaming remotely to virtual audiences around the world.

The unmissable event will feature expert keynote speakers, interactive fireside and panel discussions, and more. Do not miss this 1-day deep dive into the disruption and the future of procurement, supply chain and logistics.

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▶ Watch our showreel from PROCUREMENT & SUPPLY CHAIN LIVE London 2022

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Reusing medical devices, helping women manage the menopause & building sustainable healthcare organisations

In this issue of Healthcare Digital, we look at support for women facing the menopause and what men need to know about how they can help, and Avenda Health shares how AI is being used to combat prostate cancer.

Hello reader,

Welcome back to Healthcare Digital – it’s March in the Northern Hemisphere, and we’re ready for it. Many in the healthcare sector are ready for change, too: some are utilising AI tools for faster results and quicker diagnosis, while others are determined to make the reuse of used medical devices the norm.

Read our interview with the team at Encord, who are using AI to democratise healthcare, and Daniel J. Vukelich, Esq. – President and CEO of AMDR – who explores how the healthcare sector can make its supply chain more sustainable. Jennifer Young talks us through the menopause and, lastly, EY’s Global Health Sector Leader, Aloha McBride, explains how the company is building sustainable healthcare organisations that better serve patients and professionals.

Read on reader, HELEN ADAMS

helen.adams@bizclikmedia.com

“Many in the healthcare sector are ready for change. Some are utilising AI tools, while others are determined to make the reuse of used medical devices the norm”

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COMPANY REPORTS

28 NHS ENGLAND Building a Commercial Community through the NHS Central Commercial Function

50 SANOFI

The arrival of the ‘haute couture’ supply chain

74 i QUANTUM

A modern procurement platform for today’s business

94 BAPTIST HEALTH

Technology enabling compassionate healthcare

114 HEADSPACE HEALTH

How Headspace Health created a culture of cyber awareness

140 UPSTREAM REHABILITATION

People-process-technology trends at Upstream Rehabilitation

BIG PICTURE

The future of healthcare Slovenia

As the eight-billionth person rests in their mother's hands, the future of the healthcare sector is in ours.

Despite advances in sustainable healthcare, the carbon footprint caused by the sector is still too high.

To achieve net zero, there needs to be an infrastructure upgrade and agreements between all stakeholders.

THE BRIEF

BY THE NUMBERS

One in ten women will quit their jobs because their menopause symptoms make it too difficult to work.

READ MORE

EDITOR'S CHOICE

READ MORE

JENNIFER YOUNG ON THE MENOPAUSE & HOW MEN CAN SUPPORT WOMEN

Jennifer Young, Founder of Beauty Despite Cancer, Chair of the Global Wellness Institute and Hormonal Wellness Initiative, breaks down the menopause

READ MORE

DANIEL J. VUKELICH ON THE REPURPOSING OF MEDICAL DEVICES

Daniel J. Vukelich, Esq., President and CEO of AMDR, discusses repurposing used medical devices, the role of healthcare in climate change & Right to Repair

READ MORE

READ MORE

“Every sector or industry has challenges that we as commercial procurement professionals need to know how to handle”

Jacqui Rock, Chief Commercial Officer, NHS England

“At every level, it’s important that we have that alignment with the operational side, that we have a presence in all the hospital operations and strategy conversations”

Michael Elley CCIO, Baptist Health of Arkansas

“That's the vision: to make sure anyone who uses our service gets better from a mental healthcare standpoint”

Puneet Thapliyal, Chief Information Security Officer, Headspace Health.

Building connected & intelligent healthcare groups with EY

As EY’s Global Health Leader, Aloha McBride works with over 11,500 health-focused professionals around the world. She helps clients confront problems and solve the challenges facing the health industry.

“We know the challenges are many – spiralling costs, health disparities, an overburdened workforce, an older and sicker population, just to name a few,” she says.

EY has the ambition to be a key player in transforming the health industry into a hyperconnected, intelligent health ecosystem, driven by data insights that allow for the delivery of more personalised and equitable care, better experience and more value.

“We aim to digitally deliver the future of wellness,” continues McBride. “We put the consumer, caregiver(s) and clinicians at the centre of any solutions for health organisations. With the challenges the industry faces, we help our clients simultaneously strengthen their foundation to become more financially sustainable, while also helping them to innovate.”

 NEOS NETWORKS

Joanne Green from Neos Networks explores how digital healthcare in hospitals needs to transform, postpandemic.

 EVOKE

AI has the potential to transform healthcare by providing better patient care and predicting disease. According to Will Reese, Omnichannel Marketing Leader at Evoke, AI in healthcare is already starting to reshape the industry.

 DATA PRIVACY LAWS

Health data is rightly protected by privacy laws. Michael Hughes, Duality Technologies CBO, says collaboration on that data could unlock huge value.

 CYBERSECURITY 93% of healthcare organisations have been hit by an identity-related security breach in the past two years, according to research by SailPoint, which suggests that part of this is due to understaffing.

W A Y U P

MAR23

W A Y D O W N

A HISTORY OF

THE NHS HEALTHCARE

On 5th July, 1948, the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) began – a government and taxpayer-funded medical and healthcare service for everyone in the UK. Although discussions on setting up state healthcare date back as far as 1912, it took three decades before then-Minister of Health, Aneurin Bevan, opened the NHS up. But problems persist – here is a history of NHS strikes.

1978

The Winter of Discontent

From October 1978 to February 1979, the UK witnessed a wave of strikes. Lorry drivers, council workers and NHS staff all walked out. This caused chaos for the general public in what came to be known as “the Winter of Discontent”.

1982

NHS nurses strike for 12% pay rise

In 1982, NHS staff campaigned for a 12% pay rise. Miners and electricians undertook a 1-day "sympathy strike" in support of the NHS staff. The government set up an independent pay review team for NHS staff, NHSPRB. But this did not put an end to strikes.

HEALTHCARE STRIKES

2014

Biggest strike in 30 years

In the first strike regarding pay in over three decades, thousands of nurses, midwives and ambulance staff walked out in 2014. Staff refused to work overtime without being paid and demanded taking their breaks. Despite this, emergency healthcare was covered and the police stepped in to assist ambulance services

2015

Midwives strike in Northern Ireland

Following the 2014 strike, all midwives in England, Scotland and Wales were awarded a 1% pay rise. As a result, midwives in Northern Ireland took part in a fourhour strike. Although senior midwives in Northern Ireland received a pay rise, those on lower pay bands did not.

2022

Largest strike in NHS history

Last year, nurses across England, Wales and Northern Ireland took part in a nationwide strike – the biggest in NHS history. After ministers refused to reopen pay talks, the Royal College of Nursing said they had no choice but to strike. The government described the 19% pay rise demand as ‘unaffordable’.

Professor Mark Britnell

Professor Mark Britnell is a global healthcare expert. Alongside his numerous roles in healthcare management, he is an award-winning author and a Professor at the Global Business School for Health at University College London.

With a career spanning over 34 years, 81 countries, two award-winning books, numerous posts in healthcare management, and roles advising some of the world’s key healthcare boards and committees, Mark Britnell embodies the term global healthcare expert.

His journey in healthcare colours his entire professional life, beginning with multiple management positions within the NHS before his role as Director of Central Middlesex Hospital in 1995.

Britnell became one of the youngest people in the history of the NHS to hold a chief executive role when he became CEO of University Hospitals Birmingham from 1998-2006; his lasting impact in Birmingham is clear through his involvement in the new Queen Elizabeth Hospital and the

introduction of the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine.

Between 2006-2009, he oversaw impressive financial improvement of NHS South Central as Chief Executive of the region, before becoming a Director-General at the Department of Health and member of the NHS Management Board.

Britnell spent the next 11 years delivering sustainable growth in Healthcare, Government & Infrastructure at KPMG International, accounting for 22% of total global revenues and 45,000 staff across 145 countries. From 2014 to 2018, he also served as a member of the World Economic Forum Global Health Council.

During the period 2020-2022, he was Vice-Chairman KPMG UK in conjunction with his healthcare responsibilities. He remains involved with KPMG today as advisor to KPMG Canada & HMG, the largest healthcare group in the Middle East, alongside his work in education and position as Chairman of the Global Impact Committee in Australia.

Education

Britnell started his journey in higher education by gaining a Bachelor of Arts in History from Warwick University (1984-88), before moving on to study Law in Chester. He embarked upon healthcare education by completing the NHS Graduate Management Training Scheme, which was based at Warwick University Business School with international placement in Australia. He has recently returned to higher education

“Instead of demotivating staff and haemorrhaging talent, a drive across the NHS is needed to bring joy back to the work. If we want them to care for us, we need to care for them”

TRAILBLAZER

as a Professor at the Global Business School for Health in University College London, alongside his roles as a Trustee of The Kings Fund and visiting Senior Fellow & Executive in Residence at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, Canada.

‘In Search of the Perfect Health System’

By 2030, the world will be short of approximately 15mn health workers –a fifth of the workforce needed to keep healthcare systems going.

The global workforce crisis facing the Healthcare sector is a passion of Britnell’s, and his two books, In Search of the Perfect Health System and Human: Solving the Global Workforce Crisis in Healthcare, thoroughly examine international healthcare systems, questioning practices and seeking to answer: what is the perfect health system?

In Search of the Perfect Health System won the health and social care category at the British Medical Association's Medical Book Awards 2016 and, in 2017, was awarded Best Health Book in China from the Chinese Medical Doctors Association, the first non-Chinese writer to achieve the accolade.

NHS

Alongside the multiple roles within the NHS that Britnell has held, he has also benefited from NHS care. At 42, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, for which he received life-saving care from the NHS that he has publicly praised. He is now a board member of Prostate Cancer UK and donates all royalties from his books to the charity.

In Search of the Perfect Health System, by Mark Britnell

By 2030, the world will be short of approximately 15 million health workers – a fifth of the workforce needed to keep healthcare systems going.

BRIT BERRY-PUSEY

Brit Berry-Pusey is the co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Avenda Health, which uses AI to combat prostate cancer

Q. HI BRIT - PLEASE INTRODUCE YOURSELF AND YOUR ROLE.

» “My name is Brit Berry-Pusey, PhD, co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Avenda Health.”

Q. WHAT LED YOU TO THIS INDUSTRY?

» “For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been driven to help others; working in healthcare gives you a clear path to do that. When deciding between medical school or graduate school, I had a mentor tell me that being a physician is a great choice and I could help thousands of people in such a role. But, if I became a scientist, my discoveries could potentially help millions or even billions of people, so I became a scientist.

“During graduate school, I learned that for discoveries in the lab to have an impact, it was necessary to

translate those ideas to the clinic and to companies. I have spent my career helping great discoveries made in labs reach patients.”

Q. WHO HAVE YOU LOOKED UP TO AS A CAREER ROLE MODEL?

» “I’ve always found the patient to be a great role model. Whenever I have a tough decision to make, determining what is in the best interest of the patient never leads me astray. At Avenda Health, we are a patientcentric company, so we keep the patient in the centre of everything we do.”

Q. WHAT IS AVENDA HEALTH?

» “Avenda Health is an AI healthcare company transforming the standard of care for prostate cancer treatment. Our two solutions include: iQuest and FocalPoint.

“iQuest is an AI-enabled patient management software that uses advanced machine learning to help physicians understand the extent of the disease and identify a personalised cancer margin to target for treatment.

“We are building tools using AI to help physicians achieve great outcomes using personalised plans tailored to the individual patient”

“FocalPoint – powered by iQuest – is a tissue ablation device that can ablate the tissue identified by iQuest and leave the healthy tissue intact. FocalPoint can be used in-office with local anaesthesia, meaning little to no downtime for the patient.

“Our mission is to advance and personalise treatments to provide improved quality of life and longevity for patients with prostate cancer.”

Q. TELL US ABOUT PROSTATE CANCER TREATMENT.

» “Traditionally, localised prostate cancer is treated as a whole-gland disease – meaning that if you are diagnosed with localised prostate cancer, the entire prostate is radiated or removed. This whole-gland approach leads to urinary or sexual dysfunction in more than 50% of patients. Our goal at Avenda Health is to conduct more personalised treatments to preserve quality of life by identifying where the cancer is within the prostate and treating just the cancerous lesions and leaving the rest of the healthy prostate intact.”

Q. PROSTATE CANCER IS SCARY

– WHAT WOULD YOUR ADVICE TO MEN BE?

» “A cancer diagnosis is scary. Fortunately, the 5-year survival rate for a patient diagnosed with localised prostate cancer is greater than 99%. As a patient explores their options, it is important to understand what their priorities are. Is preserving sexual function

FocalPoint™ powered by iQuest™

iQuest™ prostate cancer management platform

a top priority? Is avoiding pads or diapers? Living to 100 years old? Not worrying about prostate cancer? “Your priorities might be different than someone else's, so make sure you discuss your priorities with your physician. One's priorities can drive which treatment to seek. Don’t forget: you have options.”

Q. HOW CAN AI HELP THE HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY?

» “AI can help healthcare in so many ways, including by democratising care. At Avenda Health, we see a future where patients will get great care regardless of where they are treated. We are building tools using the power of AI to help physicians achieve consistently great outcomes using personalised plans tailored to the individual patient.”

Q. WHAT DOES 2023 HOLD FOR YOU AND THE COMPANY??

» “2023 will be an exciting year for Avenda Health. We anticipate FDA clearance and a commercial launch of our AI-software platform iQuest. In addition, we will begin enrolling patients for a large pivotal trial to show that FocalPoint powered by iQuest is a superior treatment option for localised prostate cancer compared to the standard of care.”

Avenda Health Guest Speaker - Meeting 3/1/2022

“Our AI-enabled patient management software uses advanced machine learning to help physicians understand the the disease”

Ready to defend.

We help busy and lean security operations teams save the day — day after day.

LogRhythm: Helping the healthcare industry fight cybercrime

Andrew Hollister, Deputy CISO and Vice President of LogRhythm Labs, shares how the company is mitigating cyberattacks on healthcare organisations.

Security intelligence company, LogRhythm, was founded with the ambition to save the world from cyber threats. The founders saw the importance of equipping network defenders with the tools they needed to quickly see what threat actors were doing and to be able to respond to those activities.

LogRhythm supports small businesses through to multi-national enterprises, offering them a wide range of services. One of the main sectors it works with is healthcare.

Andrew Hollister, Deputy CISO and Vice President of LogRhythm Labs said: “Healthcare organisations are in a unique position. They’re holding huge quantities of sensitive data making them prime targets for bad actors that are directly focused on compromising patient data and critical hospital technologies.”

Hollister outlined ways in which LogRhythm assists healthcare in the fight against cybercrime. Its primary way of helping is with threat detection, explaining that they help detect threat actors in their customers’ environments early to mitigate risks, and provide support to meet compliance requirements.

“Typically, healthcare organisations don’t have massive cyber security budgets. Through our platform, we can help our healthcare customers get the most value from the resources that they have. We’ve also developed the Security Operations Maturity Model that helps organisations of all types develop their security operations and improve their resilience to cyberthreats. Security is not a step; it is a journey, and we want to provide guidance to organisations to help them.”

Speaking on the importance of partnerships, Hollister noted that the company seeks to make it a bidirectional effort. “We’ve worked with many healthcare organisations over the years and as a result, we’ve gained insight into how those organisations work and where their priorities are. We’ve been able to develop specific content that helps healthcare organisations with the challenges they have in the cybersecurity space.”

LogRhythm’s overall focus continues to be on reducing the time that it takes to detect and respond to cyberattacks and provide solutions that evolve with the ever-changing threat landscape.

Building a Commercial Community through the NHS Central Commercial Function

AD FEATURE WRITTEN BY: ILKHAN OZSEVIM

PRODUCED BY: GLEN WHITE

People often say that they fall into procurement. I didn't ‘fall’ into procurement; I made a very definite choice that this was the career path that I wanted to follow.”

These are the words of Jacqui Rock. Rock is NHS England’s Chief Commercial Officer and is spearheading one of the most significant reforms NHS procurement has seen since its inception. It’s a task of gargantuan proportions, but she has the expertise, the vision and the sheer tenacity to get it done through the NHS Central Commercial Function.

The Challenges and Opportunities

Rock points out that the private sector is very much profit-oriented, “especially in financial services, as you can imagine”.

“In the public sector though, we're extremely conscious of taxpayers’ money and of how we spend that money towards the provision of services.”

Beyond these key orientations, she notes that different sectors have different agendas, giving the example of the military (having worked in major programmes across the full military estate for the Army, Navy, Royal Air Force and Joint Forces Command), whose agenda is about protecting the realm.

With the NHS, the agenda is about providing the UK’s population with one of the best health services in the world, and Rock points out that these agendas come with their own particular challenges.

“Over the top of all of those sets of challenges, though, there are also those that we as commercial professionals constantly face – whether that be the challenge of supplier resilience, the supply chain and the availability of goods, the costs of inflation, or our supplier relationships.

“Every sector or industry has challenges that we, as commercial procurement professionals, need to know how to handle.

“The NHS is in a very challenging time right now. We’re in the midst of a difficult winter and COVID-19 is still with us. Then we have the significant impact of the cost-of-living crisis, higher inflation, increasing energy prices and the overall pressure that not only the NHS and our people are feeling, but also pressures that are being felt across the entire country.

The way that I'd like to summarise that is by pointing to Amanda Pritchard, our Chief Executive, who, at the NHS ConfedExpo in June 2022, laid out the priorities for the NHS under ‘the four Rs’.”

Jacqui Rock, NHS England’s Chief Commercial Officer, launched the NHS Central Commercial Function to reform NHS commercial practice through Collaboration, Communication & Partnership – here’s how

Recovery, Resilience, Reform and Respect

“First we have ‘Recovery’,” she says. “NHS staff are moving heaven and earth right now to deliver the Elective Recovery Plan, which is one of our biggest challenges. But this is also the most ambitious catch-up programmes in health service history.”

Where appropriate, and where patients are willing to be transferred, NHS England is implementing programmes to realise those transfers, enabling access to healthcare –not just between hospitals or trusts, but between regions – and is also strongly focused on spreading innovation in recovery and best practice across the entire country.

The second ‘R’ is ‘Reform’, and there are silver linings to dark clouds. “The pandemic supercharged the NHS with innovation,” says Rock. “We started using new drugs, new technologies and new ways of working to treat those with the virus, and to care or all of the millions that had numerous other conditions.”

COMMERCIAL SPEND

The NHS commercial spend is in excess of £30bn per year. It's the largest spend in government

JACQUI ROCK

TITLE: CHIEF COMMERCIAL OFFICER, NHS ENGLAND

INDUSTRY: HEALTHCARE

LOCATION: UNITED KINGDOM

Jacqui was previously Chief Commercial Officer, Head of Corporate Services and Transition Director at the UK Health Security Agency. As a member of the NHS Test and Trace Executive Team, she was a driving force behind dynamic and rapid innovation and technology development in the supply chain. Jacqui was formerly director for the Defence Infrastructure Organisation at the Ministry of Defence and was a member of the Cabinet Office Commercial Function. She joined the UK government after 30 years in the financial services industry where she held multiple executive positions in companies including Credit Suisse, JP Morgan, Barclays and Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

The pandemic also emphasised the importance of collaboration between different NHS organisations in the service of patients. Rock emphasises this by noting that traditional barriers were really broken down.

The third ‘R’ stands for ‘Resilience’.

“At NHS England, we're now producing a Workforce Plan, which is going to look at people, skills and training – not just for what we need now, but for what we’ll need in the next five-to-ten years – and look out to the longer term.

“And then, finally, I'll touch on ‘Respect’. Healthcare is about experience, and it's about outcomes – which is why respect is absolutely vital.

“We respect our patients, which means making sure that they are informed and ensuring that they and their families are treated with dignity.

“And, of course, we respect the British taxpayer, which really, also from a commercial perspective, is critically important.

“We’re making sure that we’re spending public money really wisely, and, with all of these challenges, I constantly remind myself of the great public support for having a National Health Service.”

Rock is right. She refers to the recently published Ipsos MORI poll from April 2020, “which showed that 62% of the public feel that the NHS was the thing that made them the most proud to be British”.

NHS England: A Singular Vision

How could one not be proud of this role? Rock’s position is one of great responsibility, and, equally, one that’s a great point of pride – and should be.

Jacqui Rock took on her role as NHS England’s Chief Commercial Officer on 1st of January 2022, and she feels that one of the most gratifying things about working in the NHS has been the people.

This is fitting for a National Health Service whose ultimate goal concerns the wellbeing of people, and in fact, begins with people, is

carried by people, and ends with people. A truly British and essentially democratic institution –and Rock is instinctively aware of this.

“Regardless of the pressures everybody is under, regardless of the challenges the NHS is facing, as I go around the hospitals, everybody is on mission. Everybody shares the same vision. Everybody wants to do the absolute best they can, even under the most difficult circumstances.

“And, for me, that's been absolutely gratifying. To work in an organisation that actually employs more than 1.2 million people, where everybody has the same drive and the same mission, is incredible.

Carter, Boardman and The Government Procurement Bill

Rock touches on The Carter Review that also took place in 2015, which concerned operational productivity in the NHS.

“It was a real key moment in the journey of NHS procurement,” she says. “The findings in the review changed the way we were recommended to work, and they informed our future ambitions.

Another significant event that occurred in this timeline was the Boardman review of government procurement in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which was published in 2021.

Similar to the Carter Review, the Boardman Review looked at how the NHS works across spending taxpayers’ money and provided some significant recommendations for the future.

Some of its key findings concerned transforming supply chain resilience, integrated roles for commercial and procurement expertise within strategy formation, and, most importantly, procurement strategy as being central to policy making when the NHS are spending government money.

Rock says: “When it comes to procurement – and this also applies to the NHS – this is something I am dedicated to, and very much focused on enhancing and fixing. We have gathered and leveraged all of the lessons and reviews that have taken place to ensure that we deliver on the recommendations through the NHS Central Commercial Function.

“Going forward, in 2023, we've got the launch of the Procurement Bill, which is currently going through Parliament. The intention of the Bill will be to reform the UK's public procurement regime to streamline new procedures, and is intended to save time for public bodies and suppliers, allowing us to promote commercial outcomes and deliver more value for the money.

“The new Procurement Bill is fundamental to the NHS Central Commercial Function, which we’re rolling out so we can ensure that

“People often say that they fall into procurement. I didn't 'fall' into procurement. I made a very definite choice that this was the career path that I wanted to follow”

JACQUI ROCK CHIEF COMMERCIAL OFFICER, NHS ENGLAND

the NHS is ready and able to procure and leverage the market.”

The NHS Central Commercial Function

In July 2022, Jacqui Rock launched the next evolution of the commercial service offer for the NHS - the Central Commercial Function (CCF), which aims to build a world class commercial community in the NHS. This will help unlock significant commercial opportunities for the NHS including leveraging NHS buying power where appropriate, delivering value for money for the taxpayer, ensuring clinicians have the right products and services they need at the right time, and tackling some of our commercial challenges such as supplier resilience.”

“This wasn’t something that we at NHS England have done alone. After spending months visiting trusts and seeing all the amazing commercial activity that’s taking place across the NHS, we've engaged closely with commercial teams right across the NHS, and have ensured that their feedback was incorporated into the development of the NHS Central Commercial Function.

Our collective ambition is a modern, effective, and efficient procurement function in the NHS that is among the best in the world, one that truly delivers taxpayer value, supports innovation, stimulates growth, and most importantly, delivers the highest quality of patient care.’’

An overview of the NHS Central Commercial Function's 7 service offerings

Since the launch, Rock and her team have developed a robust programme plan and have governance in place. They’ve really been focusing on putting NHS commercial and procurement teams at the forefront of change, and raising their profile with many of their suppliers.

The 7 service offerings of the NHS Central Commercial Function

The NHS Central Commercial Function is comprised of 7 service offerings, which are already delivering across the system.

1. Commercial Best Practice – Enabling the NHS commercial community to access tools, expertise and cutting edge knowledge to deliver purchasing activities at every level of the NHS.

2. Governance, Assurance & Processes – Endorsed, standardised and complianceassured routes to market that wield NHS influence and promote innovation to deliver government priorities.

3. Technology and Data – Developing and adopting technology that provides the NHS with insight into procurement value and savings opportunities and outcomes. This will help to leverage, rationalise and shape the market.

4. Commercial Strategies – Creating a universal strategy across the NHS with clear commercial activities and routes to market that facilitates ease of doing business.

5. Sustainability & Innovation – Developing an NHS-wide approach to delivering net zero and social value, driving innovation and eradicating modern slavery in the supply chain, enabling stakeholder engagement and application.

6. Sourcing and Management – Developing a strategic partnership approach that leverages the NHS buying power, shapes the market, drives innovation and resilience in the NHS.

7. People and Community – Embedding a unified community of procurement and commercial specialists who strive to deliver and uphold the NHS Commercial Strategy ensuring best value for money.

Using a universal ecommerce system

A key deliverable of the Central Commercial Function was introduced just weeks after its launch – and that was the universal rollout of the ecommerce system: Atamis.

NHS England made Atamis available to all health and family organisations, following funding from Crown Commercial Services and working in partnership with the Department of Health and Social Care in July 2022.

It is being used by a range of different organisations across the health family, namely (1) NHS Providers, (2) NHS Integrated Care Boards, (3) NHS CSUs, (4) national bodies (e.g. NHS England, UKHSA) and (5) the Department of Health and Social Care.

Rock says: “So far, 131 health family organisations have onboarded to the platform and nearly 29,000 suppliers have registered on the platform in order to respond to opportunities and manage their contracts with the NHS.”

“The key point of using a universal e-commerce system is that, by the end of the financial year we will have a really detailed view of commercial spend. We will know where we are spending, where the variance exists, and where we are getting better value for money.

“We will have a very good view of our supplier footprint across 220 trusts and thousands of primary care providers, so it's a really key initiative.

“We've got to be data-driven, because, ultimately, service provision is all about the data. Up to this point, it's been very hard to pull data together and actually have that overall NHS view – and this is going to enable us to do that.”

NHS organisations are already seeing the benefits. The London Ambulance Service (LAS) were one of the first to

“The real value of the NHS commercial team is in collaboration. It’s about bringing everybody across 4,000+ procurement and supply chain professionals together, so that we can agree on category strategies and move forward with a single vision”

JACQUI ROCK CHIEF COMMERCIAL OFFICER, NHS ENGLAND

onboard. Operating across London out of 70 ambulance stations, LAS has an annual addressable non-pay expenditure of around £150mn and over 340 active contracts valuing over £296mn.

Using a universal e-commerce system has allowed them complete visibility of their pipeline of procurement activity which means that the team can be more proactive with resource planning and plan upcoming procurements in a transparent and consistent manner.

Shaping the Market: Eliminating Waste and Redundant Contracts

One of Jacqui Rock’s key commitments is to implement a strategic supplier management programme to help the NHS to shape and leverage the market.

Rock says: “We should be leveraging the market. We should be able to drive innovation through our suppliers. We must focus on greater resiliency in our supply chain. We want to focus on eliminating waste, and one of the things that I found really enlightening when I came in here, is that we’ve got multiple contracts with the same supplier for the same thing, but with lots of variation.

“This is something that we need to work on collaboratively and in partnership with our big strategic suppliers to discover how we can just simply buy better in the NHS.

“So we've been spending a lot of time listening to suppliers and our key stakeholder Strategic Supplier Relationship Management teams to understand how this presently works and how we can align our strategies to make it as easy as possible to supply to the NHS.”

“Every challenges procurement

NHS England's Sustainability Roadmap

In October 2020, the National Health Service published a report called the Greener NHS Report, which announced that the NHS will be net-zero by 2040 and, for its carbon footprint plus, by 2045.

Over 60% of the total NHS Carbon Footprint sits within its supply chain and these include emissions from freight, the manufacturing of goods, catering, business services and construction.

“Our net-zero procurement plans are aligned with government policy,” says Rock. “From April 23rd, the NHS will adopt the government’s ‘Taking Account of Carbon Reduction’ plans PPN, which will require all suppliers of contracts valued over £5mn to publish a carbon reduction plan for their direct missions.

“We have also adopted the government social value model, which ensures that a minimum of 10% waiting on net zero and social value, is included in all tenders; The NHS Central Commercial Function team have been producing detailed guidance to support trusts with this.

“It's a new area for many of the trusts and certainly many of our suppliers, so we've

been ensuring we can deliver that support right the way through this process.”

The Mission: Collaboration, Communication and Partnership

The reason that Rock set up the NHS Central Commercial Function was to take a good hard look at how they buy across the NHS, so that taxpayer money is being spent in the most efficient way. Their commercial spend is in excess of £30bn per year. It's the largest spend in government, and they are spending in a very federated way because the NHS isn't just one organisation. The NHS is already one of the most efficient health services in the world, spending 2p in the pound on administration, compared to 5p in Germany and 6p in France, but Jacqui Rock says that there are opportunities to go further.

“We want to make sure that NHS bodies and trusts have the autonomy to run their hospitals and their clinical pathways.

“But the real value of the commercial team is in collaboration: it’s about bringing everybody across 4,000+ procurement and supply chain professionals together, so that we can agree on category strategies and move forward with a single vision.

“What I am really doing is getting people to work together as commercial professionals.

“It’s about collaboration, it's about community, it's about partnership.

“Our buyers are very gifted – they know what they're doing – but they will be supercharged in their effectiveness once brought out of their silos and enabled to see the bigger picture, for a better, stronger and much more effective NHS.”

“Every sector or industry has challenges that we as commercial procurement professionals need to know how to handle”

JACQUI ROCK CHIEF COMMERCIAL OFFICER, NHS ENGLAND

Jennifer Young explores supporting women in the

MEN

Jennifer Young, Founder of Beauty Despite Cancer, discusses women’s healthcare, the rise of menopause wellness and what men can do to help

WRITTEN BY: HELEN ADAMS

PAUSE

The word ‘menopause’ conjures up a whole range of feelings and preconceptions. Upon entering menopause, women can experience a range of unwanted symptoms: hot flushes, anxiety, mood swings, brain fog and irregular periods. As a result, and a lack of support, reports show that one in ten women will quit their jobs during the menopause because the symptoms make it too difficult for them to work. But as the conversation around menopause becomes more open and research provides more options, women are finding ways to thrive through hormonal change.

Support for women in the menopause

Jennifer Young is the Founder of Beauty Despite Cancer, an online resource for those with cancer. She is also the Founder

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of the Jennifer Young Training School, which teaches therapists to support those living with cancer and those living beyond it through touch therapies. Having supported women in medical as well as natural menopause for many years through her oncology work, in 2021 she launched The Menopause Plus, providing evidence-based holistic support for women in menopause through natural skincare products and hormone balancing spa treatments.

“We have been 'celebrating' World Menopause Day for years, so we can see a very clear path in its growth,” she says. “Now we’ve established that the menopause needs to be talked about, the focus has to be on meaningful solutions and support – not simply making noise or slapping 'menopause' on product labels for marketing purposes.”

Young is dedicated to supporting women and she is powered by hardworking role models.

“In this world, I come across some incredible people with a similar outlookfor example, Jo Taylor, founder of METUP UK is a constant source of inspiration, personally and professionally. I look up to

“Menopause is a part of life and we want women to thrive –not just survive”

JENNIFER YOUNG FOUNDER OF BEAUTY DESPITE CANCER

lots of people in different ways, but in my work I tend to focus on doing what I think is right. I’m not enormously influenced by others; I try to focus on looking forwards,” says Young. “The people who really influence me are those who are working for the cancer patients we seek to help, the nurses who want to support their patients beyond their medical role, and the women trying to navigate menopause and constantly coming up against brick walls. I see these challenges and my mindset is always on finding a solution.”

Young has been heartened by how loud women's voices are becoming, whether it's approaching parliament about women's rights in the workplace or sharing stories so that other women feel less isolated. But she is mindful of the work yet to be done.

“Jennifer Young Training is dedicated to training therapists and healthcare practitioners in specialist touch treatments,” explains Young. “We have two strands to our training: the first, which we are best known for, is our oncology touch therapies, enabling therapists to treat cancer patients meaningfully, effectively and safely; the second is our natural, hormone-balancing treatments for women in menopause.”

The second side of her business is in skincare products. Her Beauty Despite Cancer collection provides skincare that’s suitable during cancer treatment and that targets the side effects of cancer. Lastly, The Menopause Plus (MPlus) is a place where women in menopause can find information, products and support. The MPlus products are 100% natural and are formulated to target the unwanted consequences of menopause.

“There are limited options available for women looking to address the unwanted side effects of hormone change, MPlus is where we share evidence-based knowledge about holistic solutions,” says Young.

To date, the options for women experiencing the often distressing consequences of menopause, have been limited to HRT and/or antidepressants. Young believes that it's important to find what works for each individual. However, many women can't or don't want to take HRT or antidepressants. Young has created evidence-backed treatments and products as an option.

“We are continuing to gather more data on a global scale,” she says.

Jennifer Young Training began its in-depth research with its State of the Art Scoping Review, commissioned by the UK’s Keele University, which consists of looking at 99 peer reviewed papers. It provides academic validation and statistical scrutiny of holistic therapies on specific symptoms.

The rise of menopause wellness and what men can do to help

Young believes that the rise of menopause wellness is down to communication and education.

“Not that long ago, menopause was an unmentionable word,” she says. “History and culture is littered with comments

“History is littered with comments about difficult women, grumpy older women – observations that correlate with the consequences of menopause”

JENNIFER YOUNG FOUNDER OF BEAUTY DESPITE CANCER

“We’ve established that the menopause must be talked about; we can’t just slap 'menopause' on product labels for marketing purposes”

JENNIFER YOUNG FOUNDER OF BEAUTY DESPITE CANCER

about difficult women, grumpy older women, muddle brained women – all sorts of derogatory observations – and so much of that correlates with the consequences of menopause.”

Now women are talking about their experiences, there's more information about hormonal change coming out into the open, and men are also joining the conversation.

“The missing bit is still providing evidencebased options for women. Lots of women can't take HRT or antidepressants, don't want to take them or want to support their mind and body without medication, as well.”

Young believes that support needs to be more multifaceted to address more of the challenges and provide a much wider level of healthcare support for women.

“Menopause is a part of life and we want women to thrive – not just survive,” says Young. “This is a time of life where women have an enormous amount to offer – at home, at work and in their personal lives – giving them the right support is for the benefit of us all.”

Outside of the healthcare sector and into everyday life, how can men help women going through the menopause? Young recognises that while women feel isolated, the men in their lives can feel helpless.

“Listen and learn,” says Young. “Relationships can really suffer during menopause and most women we speak to find that communication is the most important thing.”

According to Young, communication helps improve everyone's experience.

“One of our therapists, who has been through menopause and found that CBD helped, had a lovely story where her 20-year-old son came home and asked what she had taken because his friend's mum was having a hard time with menopause. How fantastic is that? That a young man is confident enough to engage in that conversation? That's what we need to focus on.”

WRITTEN BY: HELEN ADAMS

PRODUCED BY: CRAIG KILLINGBACK

The arrival of the ‘haute couture’ supply chain

Arnaud Dourlens, Head of Clinical Supply Chain Operations at Sanofi, on building a resilient supply chain and creating efficient clinical trials

Sanofi is a one-of-a-kind pharmaceutical company for the modern age. Self-described as ‘pushing the frontiers of science’ and ‘chasing the miracles of science to improve peoples’ lives’, the 100,000-plus employee company delivers ‘life-changing treatments and life-saving vaccines’ to patients around the globe, in more than 100 countries.

The man in charge of the entire strategic sourcing and shipping process for the pharma company is Arnaud Dourlens, Head of Clinical Supply Chain Operations, who also oversees worldwide trial supply.

At heart, though, Dourlens is an engineer. He began his career in the FMCG (fastmoving consumer goods) industry, working for giants Procter & Gamble. Later, he moved into the luxury sector – the domain of beauty powerhouses such as perfume and cosmetics’ leader Christian Dior.

“For more than 10 years, I worked across operations, the supply chain, new product launches, and industrialisation – first in the makeup area and then in every cosmetic area, meaning makeup, fragrances and skincare,” outlines Dourlens.

In 2017, he switched to Sanofi as Production Director and embraced the pharmaceutical environment. During this period, Dourlens was based at the Compiègne site, in Northern France.

Arnaud Dourlens, Head of Clinical Supply Chain Operations at Sanofi

“It’s quite a strategic site here,” says Dourlens. “I led the team on the road of site improvement and transformation to be fit for the future.”

Dourlens joined Sanofi because he was passionate about the pharmaceutical field and had experience in demanding, highadded-value environments.

“I was proud to have worked in the luxury sector, making it possible for people to be even more beautiful than they are, thanks to makeup and cosmetics,” says Dourlens. “But being a part of a journey where you are allowing patients to access treatment, to

change the life of some people on a daily basis and improve their wellbeing may be a bit less trendy, but it’s so important.”

Dourlens joined the pharma’s Clinical Supply Chain Operations in Montpellier in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, in this period of chaos, it was up to Dourlens to ensure the business continuity.

“That was not easy,” says Dourlens. “As Global Head of Clinical Supply Chain, I'm heading the world supply chain of Sanofi’s clinical development – overseeing more than 300 clinical studies, making sure that we are delivering their investigational

“More than ever, the level of uncertainty we have in the worldwide clinical supply chain is just incredible”

ARNAUD DOURLENS HEAD OF CLINICAL SUPPLY CHAIN OPERATIONS, SANOFI

treatments to all the clinical patients, either at home or at hospital.”

Clinical trial supply chains – a source of value

Dourlens believes that the clinical trial supply chain can be a source of value for patients and the healthcare sector.

“When a patient is suffering from a disease, he or she is in a tough situation and clinical trials are an option of care for him or her,” explains Dourlens.

Behind the clinical trial, there are a lot of activities that are happening around

EXECUTIVE BIO

ARNAUD DOURLENS

TITLE: HEAD OF CLINICAL SUPPLY

CHAIN OPERATIONS

COMPANY: SANOFI

INDUSTRY: CLINICAL SUPPLY CHAIN

LOCATION: FRANCE

Arnaud Dourlens is an "Arts et Métiers" engineer. He began his industrial career in the FMCG sector where he held growing responsibilities. Then he joined the LVMH group where he reorganised new product launches and industrial investments in the Make-up segment .

Arnaud joined Sanofi in 2017 as Production Director of a major production site (> € 2.5bn turnover). He has been a key player in the development of the continuous improvement mindset and in the transformation of the site through IT projects, investments and activity growth.

Since 2020, he has been the global head of Sanofi Clinical Supply Chain Operations, managing worldwide clinical supply teams involved in more than 300 clinical studies.

40% Average drug waste reduction

30% Average supply cost savings

2-6 Months reduction in time to market

100% Patient service level

N-SIDE Suite is a game changer in clinical supply chain

N-SIDE Life Sciences VP Sébastien Coppe explains how leveraging data & AI can streamline clinical plans, accelerate trials, mitigate risks and curb waste

N-SIDE combines deep clinical supply chain expertise with advanced mathematics, packaged into solutions to optimise the entire clinical trial supply chain by taking a global view and making data-driven decisions at every step.

“N-SIDE has been building extensive expertise over the past 20 years in empowering supply chain management in clinical development through advanced analytics and AI,” says Sébastien Coppe, N-SIDE Life Sciences VP.

Pharma companies of all sizes use the N-SIDE Suite, an intelligent SaaS solution, to avoid supply chain bottlenecks, minimise waste, control costs, reduce time-to-market, speed up the initiation of new trials, manage production plans, monitor supply chain strategy for ongoing trials, and support commercial launches. Pharmaceutical and healthcare company Sanofi started a strategic partnership with N-SIDE five years ago to digitalise their clinical supply chain.

This has led to impressive outcomes for their supply chain efficiency.

The N-SIDE Suite consists of the Supply App, for risk-based clinical supply optimisation; the Production App, for building and maintaining an optimal manufacturing strategy; and a comprehensive slate of BI dashboards and expert services.

The N-SIDE Supply App helps pharma companies optimise their supply chains throughout the trial lifecycle. It allows them to make data-driven decisions about issues including overage, packaging, sourcing, IRT setup, and depot shipments, in a smart and interconnected way. With more than 12,000 trials optimised, N-SIDE’s Supply App can be used to design and optimise any trial of any size and complexity.

“Globally, when you consider what happened during and after the Covid pandemic, we’ve seen a lot of good changes backed up by AI technology, leading to really faster clinical development activity,” says Coppe.

Sanofi: The arrival of the ‘haute couture’ supply chain

defining a protocol, defining the way in which the study will be carried out, and the way that the data will be managed.

“The main thing that the patient will see when they are included in a Sanofi clinical trial will be the treatment. The patient will see the investigator, the physician and the hospital staff who will take care of them, but no one from Sanofi,” said Dourlens.

Yet, the treatment that the patients will get – when they receive a box of drugs or vaccine designed to either save or vastly improve their life – comes from Sanofi. It’s Dourlens’ team’s job to get the drug to the

patient on time, whatever the situation.

“We have been experimenting with our supply chain for years, during both the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” says Dourlens. “We were still able to continue to supply almost everywhere during the pandemic.”

So, how did managing the COVID-19 clinical supply chain compare to supporting it after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine?

“Many patients have been in a terrible situation due to the war, but even more so when expecting a life-saving drug that it isn’t possible to receive.”

Sanofi is creating value in its patientcentric care by thinking about the patient in these types of extraordinary circumstances, devising ways to overcome situations such as war or pandemics.

Part of this is the company delivering drugs to patients’ homes, alongside a nurse where necessary: “Sometimes a patient is very far away from the clinical site, so a nurse's visit with the medicine allows easier access to the clinical trial.”

This reduces the burden of the trial on the patient, something Sanofi is very proud to facilitate. But it’s the supply chain itself that’s

responsible for making this easier for both the nurse and the patient.

“By reducing the number of trips back and forth to the hospital, we’re supporting healthcare staff and patients. But it is down to the patients to make sure that they are taking their medicine on time.”

If we think about value, we have also to discuss a bit about trial design. “When you have a clinical trial, you’re able to influence the trial design to make sure that you limit the risk of shortage and wastage,” explains Dourlens, who, in his role, has the job of optimising the capacity in supplying the trial.

The healthcare sector is aware that it is moving into an era where the cost of drugs and products is high, due to supply chain complexity, in addition to the development of drugs. The clinical supply chain has the ability to influence the way Sanofi performs the trials – something Dourlens’ team is working on each day.

“We know that, in the near future, trial design is going to be more and more complex,” he says. “We will be adjusting the design in the course of the trial, depending on the results; it's what we call adaptive trial design.”

Sanofi’s supply chain must have the agility and flexibility to follow the changes it hopes to enact, though there are analytics tools on-hand to improve productivity, resilience and sustainability.

“To have an important impact and run successful, innovative therapies, we must avoid bottlenecks linked to drug supply and we must then guarantee that the treatment is available to the patient as quickly as possible,” says Dourlens.

“We’re not getting drugs that are similar for everybody; this is a tailor-made supply chain. I like to say that it’s an haute-couture

“The world has changed over the past two years –in the supply chain, in the clinical supply chain, and across the pharmaceutical supply chain”

ARNAUD DOURLENS HEAD OF CLINICAL SUPPLY CHAIN OPERATIONS, SANOFI

supply chain. This is where digital healthcare is really able to provide the required end-toend traceability.”

Whatever the production is – internal or external – and whatever the geography level, digital is helping to make sure Sanofi is tracking all drugs everywhere in the world, at each step of the process.

Global cost optimisation & resilience strategies

Clinical trials are happening in quite a complex landscape, because each country has its own specific regulations. Depending on the design of the trial, Dourlens’ team may have different requirements to meet, such as importation and exportation rules. The number of changes, from a regulatory perspective, in the worldwide environment is huge.

“To make a long story short, regulatory complexity and varied trial design is a big challenge. Digital healthcare is a great help in making sure that we are within these constraints in the right way,” says Dourlens.

€40bn turnover per year

100K+ number of employees

60+ sites across the world

ARNAUD DOURLENS HEAD OF CLINICAL SUPPLY CHAIN OPERATIONS, SANOFI

From an integration and cost-optimisation viewpoint, digital healthcare is also important. Today, nobody is able to run a full supplier clinical trial end-to-end without any partners. Therefore, a smooth and efficient integration becomes a must.

“When we start speaking of partners, we start speaking of making interfaces, and

when we speak about interfaces, we speak about exchanging data. The level of platform integration thanks to digital development is also key. If you have a nice digital ecosystem internally, but you don't have the proper level of connection with all the players that are contributing across your value chain, you’re not fully leveraging the efficiency of your digital system,” he says.

To perform in the global clinical supply chain, there are some core activities that are part of the internal expertise of Sanofi: optimising the design of the trial from a supply perspective, the logistics setup, packaging design, and, ultimately, the needs of the patient.

There are, however, some other areas where Sanofi relies on partners due to their greater expertise and experience with a

“When a patient has a disease, they’re in a tough situation. Clinical trials are an option of care for them”

range of customers. Put simply, these partners are able to offer services that are complementary to internal ones.

One of these integral partners is Thermo Fisher Scientific, with whom Sanofi has worked for a number of years – though a partnership devoted to the US market was only agreed two years ago, which specifically focuses on the subcontracting of packaging labelling and distribution activities for certain studies.

“We are relying on them mainly to supply everything that is manufactured in the US and then distributed worldwide for studies,” says Dourlens. “We're reaching a level of maturity and interaction between the teams in terms of development that is really high.

By reducing the number of trips back and forth to the hospital, we’re supporting healthcare staff and patients”

ARNAUD DOURLENS HEAD OF CLINICAL SUPPLY CHAIN OPERATIONS, SANOFI

Thermo Fisher Scientific has been helping us in our journey to make sure that we deliver the drug at the right time – any time – but also, that we're doing it at the right cost with the right level of optimisation.”

Any partnership requires trust because it is a vital ingredient, but for the healthcare supply chain, it is absolutely crucial.

“In a partnership, nothing happens without trust,” says Dourlens. “The second ingredient is to make sure you have a partnership based on a common interest: in a good partnership, there cannot be somebody who is winning and somebody who is losing.”

Over the next year at Sanofi, Dourlens highly expects the world to change again.

“More than ever, the level of uncertainty we have in the worldwide clinical supply chain is just incredible,” he says. “The world has changed over the past two years –in the supply chain, in the clinical supply chain and across the pharmaceutical supply chain.”

Here, the level of flexibility and agility is essential to be able to adapt for the supply chain. Yet, as the world has changed, Sanofi has also grown more resilient – so much so that managing a complex supply chain is Dourlens’ 2023 goal.

ENCORD’S ANDREAS HEINDL & ERIC LANDAU

AI SAVING

Mundane

WRITTEN BY: HELEN ADAMS

Over the past few years, the world has been stunned by what the healthcare industry has gone through. Healthcare professionals are quitting in high numbers and they aren’t all being replaced, adding more pressure onto those who remain. One thing that may be able to support healthcare workers during such times is the advent of AI.

“AI can help healthcare professionals by assisting with patient diagnostics, such as

tasks and inefficient data sourcing are sucking time from healthcare professionals. Encord’s AI is here to change that with democratised healthcare

LANDAU ON SAVING LIVES

triaging, in which patients who require immediate medical attention are placed at the front of the line,” said Andreas Heindl, Machine Learning Product Manager at Encord.

Encord is a data-centric AI startup that offers users a platform to annotate, manage collaborative labelling and, ultimately, support control workflows.

Over COVID-19, many screening programmes were suspended. Doctors are now under a great deal of pressure

to clear the backlog that has developed, which is one example of where AI can help.

“To ensure that the patient is in the proper position during the scan, an AI system can also be employed, which enhances the scan's quality,” Heindl continues. “It also lessens a patient’s stress if they are informed that a scan needs to be repeated. This saves the healthcare provider cost because the patient wouldn’t need to be recalled.”

ERIC LANDAU CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, ENCORD

Using

AI

to create democratised healthcare

Eric Landau studied Electrical Engineering at Stanford University and Applied Physics at Harvard University. Then, during his PHD, took a break to work in finance. It was during this time that he met Ulrik Hansen. They discussed the inefficiencies in data and, together, decided it was time to find a solution to empower the healthcare sector. They went on to found Encord in 2020, which is headquartered in London.

“My role at Encord involves solving a bunch of different problems and filling in

gaps,” explains Landau. “As they say, I’m a ‘Jack of all trades, master of none’ – but that’s because my job evolves. There are new problems that crop up as you grow, so my job is to solve those new problems. It’s about always being bad at what you’re doing and finding an answer!”

Landau’s healthcare role model is the late Dr Paul Farmer, medical anthropologist and co-founder of Partners in Health.

“He studied at Harvard, then he worked in Haiti, helping community clinics to solve the TB crisis. Farmer’s work is the definition of democratising healthcare.”

Encord is built to support the machine learning (ML) community to do that.

“You want a computer to solve problems – to diagnose cancer or to detect patients

“A lot of Doctors’ time is spent making notes on paper. AI can do this, which can indirectly save lives”

falling from their beds. So we built a model that learns from data,” explains Landau. “Models are like children, they have no common sense, so we have to teach them.”

A model is, of course, only as good as its data, and Landau believes that this is how AI can save lives.

On a recent visit to one customer in Denmark, Landau got to see for himself how patient monitoring works in Danish nursing homes.

“There is a nursing shortage there,” Landau says. “The AI model detects and checks when there is an issue, to save the nurses time. Being preventative is a key element to the use of AI in healthcare, by solving problems before they proliferate. Another example is in automatic stroke detection and in improving Doctor-patient outcomes. A lot of Doctors’ time is spent making notes on paper; if you want your doctors to save time, AI can make those notes instead, indirectly saving lives.”

How AI is saving lives

To Andreas Heindl, Machine Learning Product Manager at Encord, AI isn’t viewed as something to replace the human, but to make them more powerful.

“Analysing lung scans takes hours for a human, but machine learning models can perform this task in minutes, streamlining and accelerating the process,” says Heindl. “The result is that doctors can focus their time on more complex tasks, such as developing patient care plans, and patients can gain access to health information more efficiently.”

If there isn't a domain expert available, Machine Learning (ML) can also be employed. In many isolated locations where individuals lack access to doctors, AI may be their only option to receive an accurate diagnosis.

“AI is great at acting as a second pair of eyes, and incidental findings are a common occurrence.”

Deep learning is significantly more data hungry than traditional machine learning. No longer do you create features, says Heindl, instead, you let the AI discover the best ones.

“Companies are realising that scaling up their annotation workflows is the issue because current state-of-the-art AI takes a large amount of training data. Data-centric AI is essential for reviewing, scheduling, and

“Analysing lung scans takes hours for a human, but machine learning models can perform this task in minutes”

ANDREAS HEINDL MACHINE LEARNING PRODUCT MANAGER, ENCORD

assessing the quality of both annotators and their output.”

In addition, harnessing automation can allow data labellers to become more efficient.

“Since a typical annotator has many years of experience in the industry, annotating data in the healthcare sector is expensive. As a result, AI businesses want to make sure that the annotation process is as straightforward as possible for them,” said Heindl. “It makes sense to automate repetitive tasks, like finding a tumour across multiple images.” For instance, if the annotations for the first

and final image of a tumour are provided, algorithms can automatically fill in the images in between.

“This accelerates the annotation process while also enhancing the platform experience for the annotator.”

Allowing healthcare professionals to do their jobs

Despite all this great innovation, problems persist.

“There are many problems,” Landau explains. “In getting your data to solve the

problem, the biggest issue is the demographic bias.”

Demographic bias refers to the automated recognition of groups of people based on characteristics that are biological and behavioural.

“You might get data from one place, but it won’t work in another part of the country,” continues Landau. “Structured data sets that are balanced and unbiased will make them useful.”

Harnessing automation will allow data labellers to become more efficient. At Encord, that’s the goal for the healthcare sector.

“You get a lot more data out of this, more data and more time for the healthcare professionals to do the more important things – like looking after patients and their families.”

That’s what healthcare professionals and their patients want – and that AI can provide.

“Being preventative is a key element to the use of AI in healthcare, solving problems before they proliferate”

ERIC LANDAU CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, ENCORD

A modern procurement platform for today’s business

PRODUCED BY: MIKE SADR

WRITTEN BY: ILKHAN OZSEVIM

iQuantum is a global technology platform that uses AI & ML to enable innovation and procurement focusing on supplier diversity and ESG

Hetal Mehta is the founder and CEO of iQuantum Inc., a modular, modern procurement platform. As the leader of iQuantum’s woman and minority owned business, Hetal works closely with all internal teams, customers, partners, and the iQuantum Advisory Board of industry champions and practitioners.

Hetal Mehta’s journey into the industry

For many years, Mehta worked as a developer and consultant to procurement teams. Through that experience she recognised the need for a more sophisticated and user-friendly procurement solution, “one that does all the efficient and effective consolidations, automation and workflows – but also helps guide alignment between buying decisions and larger strategic corporate goals like increased diversity,” she says.

“My in-depth experience and understanding of supplier diversity led me to realise that customers struggle with finding appropriate suppliers and are prone to continuing business with existing ones – even if that is not ideal.

“With iQuantum our goal is to leverage machine learning and AI to provide a modern procurement platform with access to the largest global supplier database that includes diverse and sustainable supplier options. This helps customers build a more resilient and robust supply chain.”

iQuantum’s unique selling point

iQuantum Inc. is a modern Source-to-Pay platform designed to meet today’s procurement needs for Supplier Relationship Management, Diversity and ESG Sustainability tracking and reporting. They provide the tools and transparency to align spend decisions to strategic corporate goals.

HETAL MEHTA CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, IQUANTUM

Mehta says: “There is no single provider on the market who competes with us pinto-pin.” iQuantum is the only SaaS platform to provide:

• Complete Supplier discovery to Pay on one platform WITH modern ESG and full diverse supplier management.

• New supplier discovery from a database of millions of global suppliers to increase supply chain resilience and support new product introduction (NPI) sourcing

• Integrated supplier communication and collaboration with in-built Chat and conversation storage for future reference and context

• Modern approach to complete strategic sourcing for indirect, direct and new product introduction with internal team collaboration

• Rich contracts, procurement, and spend management analytics

• Integrated Tier 1 & Tier 2 Diversity and ESG Sustainability reporting and benchmarks

“Prioritising diversity in your employees and your supplier base as a part of ESG is integral to the growth and future trajectory of the company – employees, leadership, investors, stakeholders, and customers seek brands that are improving their profiles”

• Government and Customer reporting along with Subject Matter Expertise by fine-tuning their diverse spend tracking and achieve the elite Billion Dollar Roundtable or BDR

• Diverse and small supplier visibility to iQuantum’s Fortune 500 customer base, including support for supplier marketing of their products and catalogues

• Modular licensing approach and enterprise interoperability to accommodate each customer’s needs, budgets, and existing system investments

• Single code base for quick implementation, easy maintenance, and simple configuration with a sophisticated, userfriendly user experience

• Access to global database of suppliers including diverse/non-diverse and green suppliers for procurement to add to supply chain and achieve savings

• Better alignment, reduced risk, and increased compliance across procurement, finance, and corporate legal

HETAL MEHTA

TITLE: CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

LOCATION: IQUANTUM

Hetal holds a BS in Electrical Engineering, and, prior to founding iQuantum, she logged more than 15 years of IT consulting experience with financial firms on Wall Street. Her technical background combined with her sharp domain expertise has been instrumental in building iQuantum; engaging industry-leading customers, attracting and mentoring top engineering talent, and delivering top-class business results, she has driven iQuantum’s growth over the years. Hetal Mehta has been recipient of Steve Awards and Women of the

HETAL MEHTA CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, IQUANTUM

The importance of diversity in procurement and supply chain and the role of iQuantum McKinsey reported that working with diverse suppliers leads to an 8.5% in cost savings, which is more than the 3 - 7 % savings most procurement organisations realise.

“Prioritising diversity in your employees and your supplier base as a part of ESG is integral to the growth and future trajectory of the company – employees, leadership, investors, stakeholders, and customers seek brands that are improving their profiles,” says Mehta.

Qualified diverse suppliers bring savings and better service to customers. Procurement leaders have recognised this, and are looking at ways to increase their diverse supplier base (increasingly Tier 1 and Tier 2 diversity reporting is becoming a mandate across different industry verticals).

“Every purchase made needs to be aligned to strategic corporate goals and help to move the needle. Increased government regulation and consumer scrutiny of corporate brand spending has increased the need for a new procurement approach”

She says: “We see these two tiers in Manufacturing, and in Law firms it typically comes from customers setting goals to win RFPs, while for the Healthcare and Pharmaceutical industry the stimulus comes from the government and encourages organisations to negotiate diversity goals and to report them annually.”

iQuantum’s automated customer and government reporting solution is helping customers achieve this. “This automation,” says Mehta, “and our in-depth subject matter expertise in exclusion criteria rules, is also helping customers achieve their goals and get on to the prestigious Billion Dollar Roundtable BDR. Our global database of suppliers allows customers to source from new diverse suppliers to meet their goals.”

How iQuantum tackles modern business challenges

Businesses today need help driving alignment across divisions and teams. Core brand values and strategic goals need to be surfaced in all corporate decisions – but most importantly in spend decisions. Mehta says: “There is a critical need to meet the diversity spend and ESG sustainability goals being set by leadership and closely tracked by government regulators and investors.

“Our customers like to work with us due to our commitment to customer success, our responsiveness to customer needs and our budget-friendly pricing.” This approach relates to the findings in the McKinsey report concerning better savings and an enhanced overall experience when working with diverse suppliers.

iQuantum: A modern procurement platform for today’s business

Supporting women-owned businesses

iQuantum has subject matter experts to partner with diverse businesses (women, minority, veteran, disabled, LGBT) around the globe to provide guidance on the certification options and process; enriching their supplier profiles to maximise their reach and relevance to upcoming RFQs (Request For Quotes) RFPs (Request For Proposals) and RFIs (Request For Information), or Direct Material Sourcing.

Mehta says: “We also assist certified businesses in getting catalogue-ready, to simplify enterprise purchasing of their products. Our regular supplier outreach, newsletter supplier spotlights and social media channels promote and support women, minority, and other certified businesses. It’s part of our mission and our DNA.”

Adapting to procurement developments

Procurement needs today have changed. They need a platform which addresses

McKinsey reported that working with diverse suppliers leads to an 8.5% in cost savings, which is more than the 3-7% savings most procurement organisations realise.

HETAL MEHTA CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, IQUANTUM

today’s modern challenges of Diversity and ESG Sustainability tracking. “Every purchase made needs to be aligned to strategic corporate goals and help to move the needle,” Mehta says.

“Increased government regulation and consumer scrutiny of corporate brand spending has increased the need for a new procurement approach.”

“Customers benefit from our “Only Buy What You Need” approach which helps them avoid paying for unused functionality. Our rapid onboarding makes the user experience better and decreases the time to ROI.”

“If you are looking for a modern modular procurement platform to meet today’s procurement needs, iQuantum is the solution.”

“Our customers like to work with us due to our commitment to customer success, our responsiveness to customer needs and our budgetfriendly pricing”

Quantum’s Strategy

iQuantum’s Strategy is best seen according to 3 main facets -

1. For Diversity, their approach is two-fold. Firstly, they want to help companies find, on-board and buy from diverse suppliers easily. Secondly, they aim to help diverse suppliers gain exposure to potential customers by giving them a platform to market their products and services

2. For ESG, iQuantum’s goal is to help make this an integral part of the company and not just an afterthought to meet reporting requirements. For example, they help companies assess their GHG emissions footprint early in their product development when designing new products or building new facilities

3. For Source-to-Pay, iQuantum’s goal is to make the entire process seamless. They provide a single platform upon which companies can execute all aspects of procurement, ie Finding suppliers (Q-Discovery), Qualify (via RFx and Direct Material Sourcing for Manufacturing), Onboard (Contracts), Procure (Order Management), Monitor (SRM), and Control (Spend Analytics), but also allow modular consumption. They also aim to help companies preserve their existing investments, if they require, by integrating with any systems they may already have installed

iQuantum’s outlook for the future

The Diversity market is moving from being driven by government mandates, to one where it is an integral part of company strategy. Mehta believes that iQuantum is, “in the early stages of realising the full potential of this market.”

She says: “For ESG, this is truly a nascent but swiftly developing market.

Companies simply don't have a good way of assessing their GHG footprint, and we are one of the few solutions that can help them achieve this. We see considerable promise in helping companies assess their environmental footprint.”

In the Source-to-Pay space, iQuantum’s customer conversations have proved that legacy procurement providers are not only unable to meet today's modern business requirements, but also have yesterday's UX. Mehta says: “We are solving this problem.”

Finally, on the subject of regulations, Mehta says: “There are regulations going into effect and being defined every single day. We are keeping a constant eye on any changes that may impact rules, reporting, and best practices.

“iQuantum always keeps the SEC, SBA, CDP current, and up-to-date, helping customers to adapt and remain agile to the changing environment.”

HETAL MEHTA CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, IQUANTUM

“There is no single provider on the market who competes with us pin-to-pin”

DANIEL

J.

VUKELICH ON THE

REPR CESSING OF MEDICAL DEVICES

DEVICES

Daniel J. Vukelich, Esq., President and CEO of AMDR,

discusses reprocessing used medical devices, the role of healthcare in climate change and Right to Repair

WRITTEN BY: HELEN ADAMS

Even before COVID-19, hospitals were (surprisingly) a major driver of greenhouse gas emissions. More patients in hospitals just made matters worse.

Though healthcare professionals likely engage in some sustainable behaviour at home – recycling, for example –in the world of healthcare, many medical devices are only used once then, due to contamination fears, are thrown away. Post-pandemic, it’s time to push the healthcare sector to recycle in the workplace.

Some healthcare organisations are starting to fight back against this waste. The Association of Medical Device Reprocessors (AMDR) is one such organisation focused on reprocessing used medical equipment for environmental benefit, with Daniel J. Vukelich, Esq., President and CEO of AMDR, on a mission to reprocess used medical devices.

“We collect, decontaminate, clean, repair, functionally test, disinfect, sterilise (when required), package and return, among

SECURING THE HEALTH CARE DATA

• Real time data monitoring

• Real time hyper scaling

• Protecting data loss

• Securing Public Cloud Workloads

• Securing Vital COVID-19 Applications

WATCH NHS SCOTLAND CASE STUDY

DANIEL J. VUKELICH, ESQ. PRESIDENT & CEO OF AMDR

other steps, select ‘single-use’ devices to a majority of US hospitals,” explains Vukelich. “By reprocessing with FDA-regulated vendors, hospitals reduce cost, reduce waste and emissions, and build resilience into the supply chain by extending the life of these medical devices.”

Sustainable solutions post-pandemic

The pandemic has impacted every industry, but healthcare has, of course, borne the brunt of it. Despite the obvious negativities, in one sense, the pandemic has been beneficial in that it brought some existing long-term problems to the fore.

“COVID-19 exposed the vulnerabilities of the linear production model, or ‘take, make and then waste’ supply chain system we’ve embraced – which itself is a driver of greenhouse gas emissions,” says Vukelich. “This model creates waste, inefficiency and vulnerability, because after one use, we toss these products.”

This is why the healthcare sector is one of the largest drivers of greenhouse gas emissions in the overall economy. But by reusing materials – through FDA-regulated practices like the reprocessing of certain, single-use devices – Vukelich believes that the sector can keep products closer to home

“COVID-19 exposed the vulnerabilities of the linear production model, or ‘take, make and then waste’ supply chain system we’ve embraced”

and reuse them. Global shipping would be dramatically reduced, resulting in emissions that are roughly halved.

“Reusable or reprocessable products are preferable to disposable products. Demands made by healthcare professionals, in terms of the medical devices and supplies they use, will bend the larger industry to providing more financially and environmentally responsible options,” he says.

Over 80% of greenhouse gas emissions from hospitals come from the supply chain, known as Scope 3 emissions. For Vukelich, that’s where the focus should be.

The healthcare sector is one of the largest contributors of greenhouse gases.

“It’s the only sector where the employees have pledged a commitment to ‘do no harm’, yet have wasteful practices at hospitals that do,” says Vukelich. “Infection control practices, in part, led to a reliance on disposable equipment to do no harm to the patient in front of us. But the mountains of trash our disposable culture generates creates an environmental nightmare of a problem, and it also causes adverse impacts on health.”

The global supply chain required to create all of these disposable devices generates enormous greenhouse gas emissions, raising temperatures and causing adverse health outcomes associated with increased floods, fires, droughts and other related weather patterns. But burning all this disposable trash

“We collect, decontaminate, clean, repair, functionally test, disinfect, sterilise, package and return ‘single-use’ devices to a majority of US hospitals”

DANIEL J. VUKELICH, ESQ. PRESIDENT & CEO OF AMDR

also pollutes the air with toxins known to give people asthma and cancer – so, what’s the answer?

“We need to do no harm by our greater patient populations by not contributing to global warming and creating adverse health outcomes associated with burning medical waste,” says Vukelich.

Right to Repair and the circular economy

The issue of Right to Repair relates to extending the value of existing products by giving consumers the right to repair (or reprocess) products, without interference by the original manufacturer. Obviously, this means that those who make and trade products lose out on selling new items. As such, some manufacturers have worked hard to prevent customers from repairing their products. Vukelich believes that hospitals

should be viewed as consumers of health products and therefore have a right to repair their medical devices when they break or have them repurposed.

“Hospitals own the products. They deserve to have the right to repair them,” he says. “Reprocessing offers up a safe, regulated means to extend the lifespan of existing assets. AMDR is aligned with the fundamental interests of the Right to Repair movement.”

AMDR is also interested in efforts used by manufacturers to artificially limit the lifespan of products.

“We call it ‘forced obsolescence’. Chipping a device to turn off after one use just drives up the cost of care, creates waste, emissions and makes us more vulnerable to device shortages,” says Vukelich. “We need to stop this behaviour, instead rewarding companies

that promote reusing and reprocessing. The healthcare sector should not do business with companies that employ such efforts to bolster sales.”

Vukelich sees single-use device reprocessing as the best example of a circular economy business model in motion in healthcare.

“We are a long-standing, regulated, and proven business model, and we have the data to show we decrease costs, increase supply chain reliability and, perhaps most importantly, we reduce waste and emissions,” he says. “We are keeping devices ‘closer to home’, meaning they are reprocessed here in America and we’re not reliant on foreign imports. Recovery of used medical devices for use in the manufacturing of new devices is what we do, but it’s the future for MedTech and other industries.”

At AMDR, the company is standing against

the culture of throwing away medical devices with microchips, rare earth metals or even durable plastics and metals.

“It is environmentally and financially unsustainable,” Vukelich says. “These materials need to be reused, reprocessed and remanufactured, and, when they can no longer be used to extend product life, they should be recycled and put into the manufacture of new medical devices and healthcare products.”

In 2023, AMDR wants the Biden Administration to help incentivise hospitals that reduce emissions by using strategies like reprocessing SUDs.

“These are big public policy asks, but they are the future,” he says. “We need to move healthcare away from rewarding medical devices and supply companies for volumes and start to reward them based on value.”

“It’s the only sector where employees have pledged a commitment to ‘Do No Harm’, yet that’s what wasteful practices do”

DANIEL J. VUKELICH, ESQ. PRESIDENT & CEO OF AMDR

TECHNOLOGY ENABLING COMPASSIONATE HEALTHCARE

TECHNOLOGY

COMPASSIONATE HEALTHCARE

PRODUCED BY: TOM VENTURO

WRITTEN BY: JOHN O'HANLON

We talk to Baptist Health Arkansas’s dynamic CIO, Michael Elley, about cloudenabled IT transformation and the future of clinical practice through ML

With a full century of history behind it, Baptist Health has shown that its founding principles are enduring ones. A faithbased healthcare system – as implied by its name – it has expanded from a single hospital to eleven, serving Arkansas' population of more than 4 million while increasing care coverage into eastern Oklahoma.

Innovative leadership has helped Baptist Health to grow, becoming not only the first healthcare system in Arkansas, but the first to attempt open heart surgery, the first to perform a heart transplant, and the first to utilise robotic surgery. In all, the Baptist Health system now has 250 'points of access', comprising specialty clinics, urgent care centres and a care home for the elderly, in addition to its hospitals.

Having a firmly embedded Christian ethos, the organisation’s enduring principles lift it beyond the definition of a business to that of a healing ministry.

Just like any modern hospital group, Baptist Health seeks to attract and retain the best-qualified clinical and administrative staff while onboarding the most effective treatments and IT practices available; inevitably, its basic ethos tends to attract like-minded individuals. So much so that, in practice, its retention rates and the proportion of long-serving staff is well in advance of industry norms.

In a nutshell, Baptist Health exists to provide quality, patient-centred services, to promote and protect the voluntary, not-for-profit healthcare system, to provide top-notch health education, and to respond to the changing health needs of Arkansas’ residents with both Christian compassion and personal concern.

The CIO's task of modernisation

As well as growing in size, Baptist Health has continued to keep up with best practice, both administrative and medical – over the last three decades, of course, this has meant adopting successive iterations of technology.

The more recent journey has been the responsibility of CIO Michael Elley, who joined the company nearly five years ago. He brought with him 15 years of experience in senior positions – most of them based in the healthcare sector – and now heads up a leadership team of 14 with some 270 technical people across the wider organisation.

“These teams manage all of our Electronic Medical Records (EMR) and ERP, through to our technology stack, cybersecurity and all the other technological platforms and applications we all depend on these days. And, of course, we also work closely with the leadership team and wider colleagues, including the nurses and clinicians at our facilities.”

MICHAEL ELLEY CIO, BAPTIST HEALTH OF ARKANSAS

“We're shifting how we do medical care! That's important in a faith-based organisation”

Baptist Health: Compassionate healthcare enabled by technology

According to Elley, one thing he loves about his job as CIO is this wide variety –he's much more than just a technology leader. “We have a role in everything we do including oncology, cardiology, surgery, and everything non-clinical as well. And as all health providers must, we have to have to meet these patients, our consumers, wherever they are, whether that is in our clinical settings, virtually, or in their homes.

“We're shifting how we do medical care! That's important in a faith-based organisation. We attract a lot of like-minded, service-minded individuals.” And Baptist Health refuses to operate in isolation, seeing the benefits of collaboration; instead, it works with other healthcare systems in the state to help them provide a higher level of care. Among the advanced services in which they are deemed outstanding are virtual care, primary care, and critical care.

Elley found plenty to do upon his arrival in 2018. The bulk of the workforce is long-serving, which is excellent for consistency but can make for a resistance to change. “I did find them hungry to drive improvement and change..

“Early on, I placed an emphasis on cybersecurity, something we have made great strides in. Our data analytics were a little further behind, too – in other words, how we leveraged data to drive decisionmaking and strategy. Now, we have more structure in place and have been able to interject it into executive leadership strategy discussions and directions.”

These priorities come out of Elley’s personality and experience, he believes. Cybersecurity, though previously understood, wasn’t as top-of-mind as it is today.. It is now hardwired across the organisation – a considerable achievement in just five years, particularly when two of those spanned a global pandemic.

MICHAEL ELLEY

TITLE: CIO

COMPANY: BAPTIST HEALTH

INDUSTRY: HEALTHCARE

LOCATION: ARKANSAS, US

Michael Elley is the Chief Information Officer for Baptist Health in Arkansas. He has over 20 years of IT experience and has spent 17 years in the Healthcare IT sector, the last 12 in an executive role. Michael has worked for organisations such as Ohio Health, BJC HealthCare, Lahey Health, and Cox Health. Michael enjoys spending time and travelling with his family and has been married to his wife Angela for 21 years. He is active in physical fitness and his daughters athletic endeavours.

EXECUTIVE BIO

Imagine the Calm of a Great Night’s Sleep

Get multilayered security that delivers peace of mind with Change Healthcare Stratus Imaging. We’re working to make each healthcare journey smoother and more successful. From the center of the healthcare ecosystem, we’re using data-driven insights to transform the healthcare system.

• Reducing costs up to 20%.

• Enhancing efficiency.

• Addressing staff burnout.

• Creating a more positive healthcare experience for patients, providers, and payers.

Unleash the Power of the Cloud for Enterprise Imaging

Cloud solutions have been proven to provide security, remote access, uptime, storage and less capital investment. Cybersecurity issues have become a key disruption for the healthcare industry in recent years.

A staggering 50.4 million1 patient records were breached last year, and 70%2 of institutions reported a serious security incident. Not to mention the costly nature of these breaches, with the average cost per incident at $9.23 million3

Worst of all, breaches can disrupt critical patient services. That’s where the power of the cloud comes in. You can protect yourself from these harms with a secure cloud solution specifically designed to keep systems safe — and, just as important, to keep them from being used for an attack that could compromise your entire enterprise.

Transitioning your operations to the cloud is also a cost-effective solution that allows you to future-proof your investment as you scale. The cloud’s total cost of ownership can save an organization up to 20%. Maintaining on-prem platforms creates a high demand for utilizing IT resources and costs. With the cloud, enjoy the ability to redeploy IT resources to other priorities because of the multilayered security protection, aligned with HITRUST and SOC2 certification requirements.

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Get in touch to see how we’re transforming the healthcare system.

info.changehealthcare.com/enterprise-imaging

1 Med City News, 12/18/22, What We Learned From Cybersecurity Attacks in Healthcare in 2022.

2 2020 HIMSS Cybersecurity Survey

3 Cost of a Data Breach Report 2021, Ponemon Institute, Cost of a Data Breach Report 2021.

Into the clouds

In 2018, the system had little presence in the cloud; Elley’s ambition since undertaking his role has been to expand this dramatically. “I would venture to say that only 1% to 2% of our environment was cloud-based. As we go into 2023, about a third of it will be, says Elley.

“Our early move was from on-premise collaboration software into GCP. An 18-month, ongoing project is moving our ERP environments into the cloud. Any new systems, replacements or updates are evaluated for a move to the cloud. We're on all the main cloud platforms now, as we deploy any new tech, the first thought is about its appropriateness in the cloud.

“A priority is value for money. Does it make sense financially, from a support and reliability of performance perspective, to move that to a cloud? We're successfully reducing the amount of on-prem, server and storage needs.

“Recently, we've been upgrading our Picture Archive Communications System (PACS) system for both cardiology and radiology with the help of our partner, Change Healthcare. And now we're moving our long-term image archive and backup – in a consistent year-on-year increase for cloud utilisation.”

Maintaining on-premise platforms is expensive and involves a lot of manual work. It's hard to predict and plan spending. And then there's the matter of hardware, storage, servers, and licensing. Baptist Health is therefore benefitting – not just in efficiency now, but in future costs. Another benefit has been the greater predictability of readmissions, sepsis and many other problems formerly dealt with reactively.

Many more financial and cash-flow improvements are in the plan: “I’m keen to bring in AI to help the revenue cycle –for example, pre-authorisations – and I'm excited about its potential on the clinical side, too. Change Healthcare is helping us greatly to identify and implement these technologies.”

Particularly valuable today are advances in medical imaging technology. If a patient comes in for a CAT scan, we bank up huge numbers of images captured to illuminate a specific issue, but these may cast light on unrelated problems that should also be dealt with. ML can pick these up and bring them to the attention of the Radiologists. This is the kind of thing that really fires up Michael Elley. There’s no limit to where this technology can take patient care. As it improves, it can – while documenting an individual patient – identify similarities with other patients' scans, relate the data to other clinical indicators and indicate potential problems for other patients at an early stage.

Taking healthcare to a higher level

“I think this technology will take medicine and healthcare to the next level,” says Elley. “It will augment, not replace, what we are doing at present, making it safer and

better all the time. For example, a patient may be receiving a full chest scan for a musculo-skeletal problem causing pain or limiting their mobility. All their attention, plus that of the physician, is naturally focused on that particular problem.

“The potential of leveraging new technologies that augment the work of our clinicians to enhance, extend, and ultimately save lives make my job truly exciting!”

It should be said, however, that Baptist Health remains a fundamentally grounded organisation, and this suits Michael Elley's style of leadership. He believes that no matter how exciting the potential of advanced clinical technologies may be, they can't be introduced successfully across any large healthcare system without buy-in from all stakeholders, and in particular, among the people leading change throughout the organisation.

MICHAEL ELLEY CIO, BAPTIST HEALTH OF ARKANSAS

“The potential of leveraging new technologies that augment the work of our clinicians to enhance, extend, and ultimately save lives make my job truly exciting!”

“One of the first things I arranged upon my arrival was to establish specific IT leaders within the operational leadership teams of our hospitals and physician groups. These are not only relaying information to those operational areas about what's going on from an IT perspective, but that information is coming back to us about directional and strategic changes currently occurring or planned to occur on the operational side. As a result, I can say confidently that we now have a really solid alignment between those operational areas and IT.

“Much of the evolution and change in the organisation is now necessarily going to be IT-driven, whether it's a simple question of hardware support software or something as broad as the revolution in imaging capabilities.

“At every level, it’s important that we have that alignment with the operational side, that we have a presence in all the hospital operations and strategy conversations. Indeed, everything from the different service lines to our clinical space. I think we’ve done a nice job of getting our senior leadership aligned!”

Looks like it’s onwards and upwards for Baptist Health of Arkansas from here on out.

“At every level, it’s important that we have that alignment with the operational side, that we have a presence in all the hospital operations and strategy conversations”

MICHAEL ELLEY CIO, BAPTIST HEALTH OF ARKANSAS

BUILDING CONNECTED & INTELLIGENT HEALTH ECOSYSTEMS WITH EY

WRITTEN BY: HELEN ADAMS

Consulting company Ernst & Young sprouted from two small accounting companies: Alwin Ernst founded one in Cleveland, USA, 1903, and Arthur Young founded his own in 1906, Chicago. Later in 1989, the two companies merged and quickly shot up to become one of the Big Four accounting firms. In 2023, the company employs over 200,000 people and operates in over 150 countries, offering consulting services across auditing, taxation, business risk, technology, security risk services and human capital services.

As EY’s Global Health Leader, Aloha McBride works with over 11,500 health-focused professionals that EY has around the world. She helps clients confront problems and solve the challenges facing the health industry.

“We know the challenges are many – spiralling costs, health disparities, an

Aloha McBride, EY’s Global Health Leader, shares how the company is unlocking the power of data to help clients shift toward sustainable delivery models

CONNECTED HEALTH EY

Over the past 18 months the NHS has faced unprecedented demand and pressures due to COVID-19. The response to the pandemic was launched on many fronts - treating the ill, test and trace to minimise the spread of the virus and then the vaccine program.

Scotland faced unique challenges in trying to manage at pace such a geographically disperse population, so it remained imperative that NHS Scotland had the ability to rapidly record and process data in real time.

With NHS Scotland facing such an urgent problem, we approached them with a solution: working with Apple to acquire 1,600 iPads, which we then deployed with connectivity, dedicated software, mobile device management, logistics, support and crucially, network security, in partnership with Check Point Software Technologies.

The iPads allow NHS staff to easily and securely record people who have registered for the vaccine, update details to the central database (via wifi and our 4G network), record which vaccine they’ve had and when their next appointment is due. We manage the full solution under our Digital Workplace portfolio, so they don’t have to - allowing NHS staff to focus on their day-to-

day work. Updates are immediate, ensuring that everyone always has the very latest information – essential for an effective, fast-moving rollout.

Working closely with Check Point, we were able to ensure that the security embedded in this deployment aligned to what NHS Scotland uses in other areas - every device needs to be locked down, secure and protected from a malware, spam and data security perspective.

With time ticking away, we distributed iPads all around the country in the three weeks leading up to Christmas, with Logan Air stepping in to deliver to the Islands on Christmas Eve. We ramped this up to 2,750 iPads by the end of January, ensuring NHS Scotland could get up to their full capacity of vaccination efforts.

The programme was a direct aid to helping to put Scotland at the top of the European vaccination league.

By Simeon Maurer O2 Business - Client Manager, Scotland

ALOHA MCBRIDE, GLOBAL HEALTH LEADER, EY

overburdened workforce, an older and sicker population – just to name a few,” she says. “But it’s also an exciting time for the industry as it tries to realise the full potential of virtual care, automation, analytics and connected data platforms. One of the best parts of my job is helping our clients across the globe digitally transform to better serve their patients.”

EY has the ambition to be a key player in transforming the health industry into a hyperconnected, intelligent health ecosystem, driven by data insights that allow for the delivery of more personalised and equitable care, better experience and more value.

“We aim to digitally deliver the future of wellness,” continues McBride. “We put the consumer, caregiver(s) and clinicians at the centre of any solutions for health organisations. With the challenges the industry faces, we help our clients simultaneously strengthen their foundation to become more financially sustainable, while also helping them to innovate and shift toward new care delivery models.”

EY’s work in the healthcare industry

McBride took on the role of Global Health Sector Leader in July 2020, a time when the global health industry was in crisis.

“What COVID-19 did was to drive home the need for healthcare organisations to become more connected, intelligent and sustainable,” she says.

With an overburdened workforce and significant worker shortages forecasted, health organisations see the need to automate more of their workflows to free up clinicians to do what they do best. With scarce resources, McBride sees that healthcare organisations are looking to demonstrate value.

“What COVID-19 did was drive home the need for healthcare organisations to become more connected, intelligent and sustainable”

“They are looking for data insights to help them create a more transparent and resilient supply chain, and to deliver more personalised care.”

EY is building a better working world with optimised health outcomes. The company purposefully named its Health business ‘Health Sciences and Wellness’ because EY wanted its strategy to be built around unlocking the power of data to deliver a more engaging health experience with improved, affordable outcomes.

“Data now is uncoordinated, often underleveraged, and spread throughout the ecosystem,” says McBride. “We help health organisations build digital platforms, common data models and data strategies that allow for the flow of data needed to generate real-time actionable insights about, and for, our patients’ wellbeing.”

To step into the future, healthcare must move beyond digital innovation, toward the world of big data and smart technology infrastructures.

“Analysing lung scans takes hours for a human, but machine learning models can perform this task in minutes”

“Many of us probably have had the experience of having to fill out duplicate forms, or of struggling to understand the next step in a loved one’s care plan,” says McBride. “Smart health starts by getting the user experience right by designing for people – the consumer and the workforce.”

McBride is aware that physicians are exhausted and have too many administrative tasks that get in the way of caring for patients.

“No new tool should be rolled out to the clinical staff without involving them in the

“We wanted our strategy to be built around unlocking the power of data to deliver a more engaging health experience”

ALOHA MCBRIDE, GLOBAL HEALTH LEADER, EY

process,” she says. “They know what patients and colleagues need. Yes, a smart health experience will mean leveraging data to drive insights that can influence outcomes, it will mean building digital platforms, and applying analytics and other emerging technologies –but at the centre of all this is the clinician and the consumer.”

EY does a lot of work with clients thinking through that human experience.

“Do you have the right digital front door to welcome consumers and help their caregivers navigate the system? What communications can be automated to help you develop a more consistent relationship with your patients? Do your care pathways factor in consumer preferences and social determinants of health to help achieve the desired outcomes? By incorporating the human experience lens, you can accomplish the quadruple aim of improved patient experience and provider experience, improved outcomes, and lower costs,” she says.

EY is helping health IT decision-makers to understand that as healthcare systems integrate, they have an opportunity to

“We help clients strengthen their foundation to become financially sustainable, while also helping them shift toward new care delivery models”

ALOHA MCBRIDE, GLOBAL HEALTH LEADER, EY

ERNST & YOUNG IS ONE OF THE BIG FOUR ACCOUNTING FIRMS AND EMPLOYS OVER 200,000 PEOPLE ACROSS 150 COUNTRIES.

reimagine the health information infrastructure to allow for innovation and fluidity.

“Current health technology infrastructure doesn’t allow for easy connectivity,” says McBride. “Data is often siloed in systems that don’t easily connect, so it’s harder to deploy new technologies, to analyse data, and to bring new players into the ecosystem that serves the patient. We need an open architecture – one with agreed protocols and interfaces that help enable applications to talk to each other and share data.”

McBride believes that virtual care, including telemedicine, can help health organisations confront the challenges ahead once they find an appropriate way to integrate it with in-person care.

EY’s predictions for virtual healthcare

McBride sees virtual care as critical to helping health organisations solve those challenges ahead. Around the globe, evidence shows that successfully integrating digital, virtual and in-person care can free up staff and hospital beds, reduce costs, and improve outcomes as health systems try to treat an older, sicker population with fewer health workers.

“But to do this right, health organisations need deep knowledge about their patient populations so care pathways can be stratified according to consumer preferences, lifestyle factors, and health needs,” explains McBride. “It’s also going to require new workforce roles, payment incentives, and expanding concepts such as digital command centres, remote patient monitoring across the care continuum, and hospitals at home.”

This is where EY is headed – to a proactive, data-driven, user-friendly system that keeps patients healthier at home longer and prevents the progression of disease to crisis points.

HEADSPACE

How Headspace Health created a culture of cyber awareness

PRODUCED BY: TOM VENTURO

Headspace Health is changing the way the world thinks about mental healthcare, delivering beloved meditation and mindfulness exercises and one-on-one care anytime, anywhere.

In 2021, Headspace and Ginger joined forces to form Headspace Health, the world's most comprehensive and accessible mental healthcare platform. In the midst of a growing mental health crisis, Headspace Health set out to democratise mental healthcare so people everywhere could get the care they need when they need it. Today, Headspace Health touches nearly 100m lives worldwide through its brands Headspace, Ginger, and Headspace for Work.

Puneet Thapliyal is the Chief Information Security Officer at Headspace Health. Joining the company in 2016 when it was a Silicon Valley startup, and had zero revenue and zero customers, Headspace is now a company of more than 1,100 people, with revenue of hundreds of millions of dollars.

“It's been an incredible journey and a great opportunity, and I feel lucky to be part of this journey,” he says. “Prior to starting at Headspace Health, I was CEO of my own security product company called Trusted Passage. I wanted to be part of a company that has a large impact on the world, and I got introduced to Ginger in 2016.

“When I talked to the founding team, I was very impressed by the vision they

Headspace Health is on a mission to change the way the world thinks about mental health. But to protect users’ data, innovative solutions are needed

How Headspace Health created a culture of cyber awareness

had of solving mental healthcare for the whole world. I wanted to be part of the journey, and that was how I got into digital healthcare,” adds Thapliyal. “The company itself was building a tele-mental healthcare platform, which just five or six years ago was unheard of. I wanted to contribute as much as possible to make it a reality and, fast forward to today, it's a very mainstream offering.”

On a mission to solve mental healthcare for everybody in the world, Headspace Health offers a whole spectrum of services, from mindfulness tools to CBT, coaching, therapy, and psychiatry. The service starts with the mobile app, which helps users with meditation and helps users build good daily habits around sleep breathing.

“That is a consumer offering, so anyone could go to the app store and download and start using that and help themselves get

“OUR CORE MISSION IS TO BUILD A SERVICE WHERE MENTAL HEALTHCARE IS EASILY ACCESSIBLE TO EVERYBODY IN THE WORLD. WE WANT TO SEE A WORLD WHERE MENTAL HEALTH IS NEVER AN OBSTACLE FOR ANYONE”

better,” Thapliyal comments. “Beyond that, if you need a little bit more help, then you are able to talk to a life coach, through text and video, for your subclinical needs.

“If you have a certain situation where you need clinical help, then you are able to elevate the service level to clinical where you can now schedule time with a therapist or psychiatrist, get medication, or whatever it takes to get you into a better state from a mental healthcare standpoint,” he explains. “That's the vision of the company: to focus on outcomes and to make sure anyone who comes and uses our service is able to get better from a mental healthcare standpoint.”

Helping remove the mental health stigma

Millions of people worldwide are living with a mental health condition, not helped by the COVID-19 pandemic which exacerbated mental health concerns, with a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation finding that nearly half of adults in the United States reported symptoms of depression or anxiety during the subsequent global lockdowns.

According to Headspace Health, mindfulness and meditation can positively impact mental and physical health, whether by reducing stress, improving sleep, increasing focus, or improving relationships.

“Our core mission is to build a service where mental healthcare is easily accessible to everybody in the world. We want to see a world where mental health is never an obstacle for anyone,” Thapliyal says.

Building this world is a huge challenge.

According to a recent World Health Organisation study, about one in eight people – a billion people worldwide – suffer from some kind of mental health disorder. Of those, Thapliyal comments, about 75% of them never even get any help for their mental healthcare.

PUNEET THAPLIYAL

TITLE: CHIEF INFORMATION SECURITY OFFICER

INDUSTRY: MENTAL HEALTH CARE

LOCATION: CALIFORNIA, US

Puneet is the Chief Information Security Officer at Headspace Health where he heads up overall strategy and direction of product and IT security as well as member data privacy. He is a seasoned cybersecurity and networking executive with previous stints at Yahoo! and Oracle. Puneet is an active member of the OWASP, Cloud Standards Customer Council (CSCC) and Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) where he actively contributes towards security emerging research topics such as the Software Defined Perimeter (SDP) and Cloud Standards activities. He has extensive experience with cloud security and has helped build one of the first Firewall As A Service (FAAS) offerings. He holds multiple technology patents including in the areas of Web App Security and Multicast Protocol Congestion Control.

EXECUTIVE BIO

Puneet earned an undergraduate degree in Computer Science from HBTI, Kanpur and a masters degree in Computer Science from Rensselaer (RPI), NY.

“WE ARE SEEING AN UPTICK IN MALICIOUS ACTIVITY IN THE HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY. FOR EXAMPLE, THE HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY IS BEING TARGETED BY RANSOMWARE MORE THAN ANY OTHER INDUSTRY”

PUNEET THAPLIYAL CHIEF INFORMATION SECURITY OFFICER, HEADSPACE HEALTH

“That's a huge number, which has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 situation and the lockdowns,” he adds. “So, the core mission is to get our care services available to as many people in the world as quickly as possible, so that we can build a happier, healthier world.”

By making services available to more people, organisations such as Headspace Health are helping dispel stigmas associated with mental health. Figures by the National Attitudes to Mental Illness Survey show that people’s willingness to have contact with someone with a mental health problem has improved by 11% since 2009, while attitudes towards people with mental health problems improved by 9.6% in the same period.

“The fact that we've been able to contribute a little bit towards removing the stigma or taboo associated with mental healthcare, by bringing this very accessible platform and the service that we have, is a proud moment for me,” explains Thapliyal. “We've been able to actually move the needle in the last several years, and a whole team has been part of that, the founding team of the company, the executive leadership team and everybody else in the company who has joined the company with this mission in mind.”

The importance of cybersecurity and data privacy

While cybersecurity is important for every company in the world today, it is even more important in the healthcare industry. Technology has transformed modern healthcare but bad actors mean that there are unique risks when it comes to virtual mental health services.

“Healthcare is one of those industries where cybersecurity and data security are extremely important,” comments Thapliyal.

in the healthcare industry. For example, the healthcare industry is being targeted by ransomware more than any other industry.

“On top of that, we are a single-purpose mental healthcare service provider, and in many of the regulations, including the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in the US, mental healthcare data is called out separately, from a security and privacy standpoint.

“We are highly aware of that, and we feel like that's a huge responsibility,” he explains.

“The company has always had an extremely strategic focus on cybersecurity from the very beginning. We have built a very mature programme, and now we are morphing it from just purely cybersecurity to a very privacy-focused programme as well.”

As Thapliyal explains, part of Headspace Health’s success from a cybersecurity standpoint is the creation of a culture where everyone is aware of the importance of security and privacy.

“Unlike many other companies and industries, mental healthcare is one of those domains where privacy is super important for everybody, including our patients, user members, and our clinicians and coaches. Everybody in the company is highly aware and sensitive about preserving privacy,” he describes.

“The whole cybersecurity industry is still learning how to build that culture of security, which permeates through the whole organisation and is not just limited to the InfoSec teams or the IT teams or engineering teams. It's a challenge, and it requires a thoughtful approach. When we onboard a brand new employee, for example, we focus on cybersecurity from day one. That's where the journey starts for a new employee, and then it has to continue throughout their time at the company.”

But, as Thapliyal explains, relying on training alone isn’t enough. Highly compliance-driven training can quickly become repetitive, so keeping everyone engaged is critical.

“We have a strategic plan in the InfoSec team to drive engagement within

the company to spread awareness of cybersecurity,” he adds. “These are from the small little things, from having a shared Slack channel, which we fondly call the ‘tinfoil hats channel’, where everyone is able to voice cybersecurity or privacy concerns, to more mature programmes such as our Security Insiders Programme, which involves deeper engagement, where every department volunteers a couple of team members to engage with the InfoSec team.”

All of this is about instilling a culture of cybersecurity awareness at all levels of the organisation, Thapliyal comments.

“We have now built out a programme where we depend on some of these security insiders to fulfil InfoSec requirements and instil this culture of cybersecurity awareness in their respective teams,” he says. “Those are initiatives where we need to be focused,

According to research by Headspace Health, 32% of users benefit from a decrease in stress after 30 days of using the service. Meanwhile 22% of users show an increase in focus after one session, while 19% benefit from a decrease in anxiety symptoms after eight weeks.

we need to put the right resources, we need to fund it, and that's how we've been able to achieve this sense of heightened awareness around cybersecurity in the company.”

Extra focus on third-party risk

Healthcare providers, along with businesses around the world, are increasingly relying on third-party vendors to carry out their dayto-day operations. But while working with vendors has a range of benefits, the practice can also introduce information security and vendor compliance risks.

Research by the Ponemon Institute has found that 54% of third-party respondents had at least one data breach involving protected health information (PHI) over the last two years, while 41% of third-party respondents had six or more data breaches during the same two-year time frame.

“Our third-party ecosystem is extremely important,” comments Thapliyal. “We are in a new world. We call our company a SaaS-first company, meaning given a problem business challenge, we first go and look for a SaaS service provider that can help solve that.

“This is very different from how traditional healthcare companies operate, where they

run their own data centres and maintain their own networks,” he explains. “Since we are operating in SaaS-first principles, that – by the very nature of it – means we are dealing with a lot of third parties. As a result, dealing with all these vendors and third parties requires us to put extra focus on third-party risk management (TPRM).

“We have a team which is helping in our third-party assessments on a continuous basis, not just at the beginning of the contract,” he adds. “We have deployed tools to help with that, making sure our TPRM team is well-equipped to perform the access reviews at scale. And then we also categorise our vendors to the sensitivity of what data we might be transacting with them. So we have an extra special focus on any vendor that might transact with our PHI or personal identifying information (PII).”

An important part of Headspace’s operations, the business is continuing to improve its TPRM processes through technology investments.

“One such vendor we recently onboarded is called Privado,” says Thapliyal. “They are really

“MENTAL HEALTHCARE IS A DOMAIN WHERE PRIVACY IS SUPER IMPORTANT FOR EVERYBODY, INCLUDING OUR PATIENTS, USER MEMBERS, AND OUR CLINICIANS AND COACHES”

PUNEET THAPLIYAL CHIEF INFORMATION SECURITY OFFICER, HEADSPACE HEALTH

helping us with maturing our secure software development lifecycle (SSDLC) and making sure we are not, for example, unnecessarily tracking users on our websites or on our mobile apps, and that we're not sending any PII or PHI to unapproved third parties.

“There has recently been a lot of focus in the media on apps that are doing nefarious things. We don't want to be in that business at all – that's not where we are. But we need to still build the tools to prevent any accidental sharing or tracking. So that's where Privado comes in as a big partner, for us, structurally built into our SSDLC, and we're very excited about how our partnership will shape up in the future.”

Looking at the big picture in challenging economic times

Since tech startup Ginger and Headspace merged in 2021, there has been what Headspace Health CEO Russell Glass described as a ‘staggering’ increase in demand. Ginger reported demand for its services increased threefold during the pandemic. But what does the future look like for Headspace Health?

“To answer that, we have to take a step back and look at the big picture, what's happening in the industry today,” comments Thapliyal. “There are a lot of macroeconomic factors in play, within the US and other parts of the world. There is

constant chatter around a slowdown in the economy and a recession, and then most recently in the US, we have seen companies take corrective actions to right-size their companies. A lot of layoffs have been announced by the likes of Facebook and Twitter and all the large companies.

“The general sense is that tough times are coming and we need to hunker down and prepare for that, and whoever does a better job in preparing for that will come out as a successful company on the other side.”

In a challenging economic environment, what is clear however is that the most important thing is to focus on the health and wellbeing of Headspace’s users.

“Given that broader context, our board and our executive team have given the directions to be very mindful,” Thapliyal explains. “We are trying to take this as an opportunity to refocus on doing less and doing better. So that's how we are changing our strategy as we go into 2023.

“What that means to the company as a whole is that we will continue to get better and offer more features and more services in the coming years,” he concludes. “The focus will be on what we call members first, meaning anything that we do should ultimately benefit our patients.”

HEALTH CENTRES & WELLBEING RETREATS

THE WELLNESS INDUSTRY IS WORTH US$4.5TN IN THE POST-PANDEMIC WORLD. HERE’S OUR TOP 10 HEALTH CENTRES & WELLBEING RETREATS FOR MENTAL RESTORATION

WRITTEN BY: HELEN ADAMS

COVID-19 ravaged hospitals and healthcare supply chains back in 2020. Ever since, however, the wellbeing industry has been riding a wave of post-pandemic popularity. Telehealth was primarily used by doctors for physical ailments prior to the pandemic, but, under persistent lockdowns and ongoing uncertainty, many found that their mental health needed some support, too. This led to a rise in digital

support for mental wellbeing, with the 10 biggest English-language mental wellbeing apps seeing an increase of 2 million extra downloads in the period between January and April 2020.

But for those who want to get back out into the world, wellness travel may be the answer. Luxurious retreats offer opportunities to restore the mind, body and soul, while award-winning wellbeing centres allow space for nurturing personal growth.

10

Aro Ha New Zealand

Just 35 minutes outside of Queenstown, the adrenaline capital of the world, sits the Aro Ha retreat, where modern science meets ancient traditions in the creation of a regenerative experience for physical and mental growth.

Run on a mix of solar energy and hydro-power, the Aro Ha retreat offers spectacular views of Lake Wakatipu and the Southern Alps. Guests are encouraged to reconnect with themselves and the planet, with farm-to-table meals available to guests.

09

EVRYMAN believes mental and physical health are intertwined and that men’s emotional health needs some support. The New York-based service offers menonly retreats focused on forging deeper relationships, finding purpose, managing life transitions and supporting health.

Mindful emotional intelligence is utilised in a space for difficult conversations, where men can leave with new friendships to embark on more fulfilling lives. The company aims to keep the cost of membership accessible to reach a more diverse and inclusive customer base.

Fivelements Retreat Bali Bali

Fivelements Retreat Bali is an award-winning, eco-friendly wellness retreat that offers guests an understanding of Bali’s ancient traditions, with the aim of nurturing overall health and wellbeing. Following the belief that the root of wellness originates in respecting the mind, body and spirit, Fivelements’ wellness retreats offer balancing healing rituals and sacred arts practices for inner strength. Guests are also treated to a plantbased food menu designed to support their health.

The Priory Wellbeing Centre Dubai

Priory Group Middle East is part of the UK’s Priory Group of Companies, established in London in 1872 at Priory Hospital Roehampton, providing evidencebased behavioural care to the UAE.

Staffed by psychiatrists, psychologists and counsellors, Priory Wellbeing Centre provides treatment for a wide range of conditions including depression, stress, addiction, and anxietyrelated conditions including obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and panic attacks.

The centre currently treats more than 70 different conditions through a nationwide network of over 300 facilities.

Be What’s Next.

Nirjhara Bali

Telstra Health and Gold Coast Health: delivering virtual care

Nirjhara resort is headquartered beside one of Bali's most iconic temples, located off-the-beatenpath in the jungle and surrounded by rice fields.

Founded in 2013, Telstra Health works to improve lives by delivering digitally-enabled care to its communities by providing software products, solutions and platforms to governments and healthcare providers throughout Australia.

Nirjhara means ‘waterfall’ in Sanskrit, and the property benefits from a flowing river that carves a path through the site, around which the hotel’s 25 private villas and tree houses have been laid out.

The intimate yoga shala takes form in a bamboo structure that’s built over rocks beside a waterfall. The resort’s spa is built around a reflection pool and boasts a Finnish sauna, offering a range of treatments that are based in Balinese healing practices, as well as a fitness centre that benefits from floor-to-ceiling windows.

Be What’s Next.

Telstra Health was chosen as a key partner of Gold Coast Health Services, providing their virtual health consultation platform as a way to deliver patient care remotely.

“Traditionally, you might go to see a specialist at a hospital and, after a five minute conversation, be sent home,” Jamie Spencer, Regional General Manager Business Development at Telstra Health says. “Someone living in rural Queensland might drive for up to four to six hours for that five minute appointment. Now, rather than people having to make those long journeys to see a specialist, we can provide

can monitor patients’ blood pressure, pulse oximetry, temperature and weight remotely. These baseline metrics are then combined with a virtual appointment in which the clinician can follow-up with the patient to discuss and provide results.

Chiva-Som International Health Resorts Thailand

“We’ve found that our service has helped to dramatically reduce readmission rates, and enabled early discharge, which means that patients get to be at home sooner,” enthuses Spencer, who also notes that, “The overarching monitoring aspect can also help people who need readmission get back into hospital sooner, which can make a huge difference in some cases.”

Spencer, who works closely with Sandip Kumar, Gold Coast Health’s Executive Director of Transformation and Digital, emphasises that the relationship between Telstra Health and Gold Coast is far more than that of vendor and client. “We’re looking for a real partner, not just a customer.”

Chiva-Som International Health Resort is a luxury wellness retreat located in Hua Hin, Thailand. From weight-management and Muay Thai-based fitness to cancer recovery, spa pampering, and soul-searching, Chiva Som has a programme for whatever ails guests. There’s a choice of daily classes to attend – including yoga and meditation, aqua aerobics and tabata – and the resort also has its own gyms and tennis courts, physiotherapy suites, a sports injury clinic, separate gendered spas, and the Niranlanda Medi-spa.

04

Kamalaya Koh Samui Thailand

One of Asia’s top wellness retreats, Kamalaya Koh Samui is a multiaward-winning Wellness Sanctuary and Holistic Spa ideally located amid the tropical landscape hemming the southern coastline of Koh Samui, Thailand.

The retreat's wellness programmes include a variety of activities such as yoga, meditation, tai chi, and qigong, as well as treatments like acupuncture, massages, and bodywork. Additionally, the retreat offers specialised programmes for specific health concerns such as stress management, detoxification, and weight management.

Guests can also take cooking classes and learn about the principles of healthy eating, further promoting their understanding of wellness and self-care.

Ananda In The Himalayas India

Centred on holistic wellbeing and healing, Ananda in the Himalayas is a luxury destination spa situated in Northern India's foothills.

Inspired by a deep understanding of ancient Indian traditions, Ananda Spa employs qualified Ayurveda doctors and therapists to administer personalised treatments, ranging from therapeutic massage to toxic elimination; from yoga and meditation programmes taught by experienced Bihar School yoga teachers to daily interactive talks from Vedanta disciples and leading international masters.

SHA Wellness Clinic Spain

The creation of the SHA Wellness Clinic, located in the middle of the Sierra Helada Natural Park in Spain, was the result of a transformative personal experience. After years of medical issues and plagued with a troubling diagnosis, Alfredo Bataller Parietti, CEO of SHA Wellness Clinic, managed to transform his health. Amazed by the impact food and certain therapies have on health, he felt the need to share and disseminate this valuable knowledge, which resulted in the creation of SHA Wellness Clinic.

Since opening its doors in 2008, the clinic has integrated eight holistic disciplines, with guests choosing between a range of health programmes. SHA utilises medical advances with dietary re-education and natural therapies to improve people’s health and wellbeing.

Programmes include healthy ageing and weight-loss programmes, as well as advanced detox plans, among others.

TOOP

LEADERS

General resort presentation from Six Senses Yao Noi

Six Senses Hotels Resorts Spas Thailand

With over 16 hotels and resorts as well as 25 spas across 19 countries from Italy to Bhutan, Six Senses prides itself on expertled wellness retreats across the globe.

Integrating personal wellness with sustainability, Six Senses Yao Noi in Phang Nga Bay is a quiet retreat, nestled away from the nearby bustling city of Phuket. Spread over 24 acres of

natural environment, the resort offers wellness screening, where smart tech is combined with expert knowledge to deliver personalised treatments, depending on individuals’ needs. The noninvasive consultation involves measuring biomarkers while concomitantly asking about individual lifestyle factors, resulting in a bespoke, multi-day programme.

PEOPLE - PROCESSTECHNOLOGY TRENDS AT UPSTREAM REHABILITATION

WRITTEN BY: GEORGE HOPKIN

PRODUCED BY: TOM VENTURO

Vice President of Information Technology for Upstream Rehabilitation

Jeff Petet on working for a company that wants to help people

Each and every one of us has a different measure of success that we judge ourselves by. For some, it may be the amount of money earned or praise garnered that demonstrates achievement; for others, it may be simply putting a smile on someone’s face.

At health provider Upstream Rehabilitation, though, success is measured by the trust and love patients and their families feel through the healing journey.

Currently, Upstream Rehabilitation is continuing its remarkable expansion across the United States. And though the company uses cutting-edge tech across its broad ecosystem of companies and partners, its technology team appreciates that humans will always be required.

Founded in 2004, Upstream Rehabilitation is a portfolio company of Revelstoke Capital Partners and, with 1,200 locations in 28 states, is the largest provider dedicated to outpatient physical therapy in the United States. Headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, the company provides a comprehensive suite of outpatient and specialised physical therapy services through a network of industry-leading regional brands, including: BenchMark Physical Therapy, Results Physiotherapy, Drayer Physical Therapy, Elite PT, and SERC Physical Therapy.

Between the year of its launch and 2010, Upstream acquired several brands, including Benchmark PT, Preferred Therapy

People process technology trends at Upstream Rehabilitation

Providers and Integrity Rehab Group, building a fully-rounded healthcare service company. It also expanded its services across some of the midwest, southern, and Bible-belt states in the US to serve a vast range of people in need: Oregan, Washington, Georgia, Kansas, Missouri, Alabama, Louisiana, North Carolina, Texas and Arkansas.

In 2018, Upstream completed a merger with Drayer Physical Therapy. The following year saw it open 100 new clinics and acquire an additional 12, while also expanding its services into Iowa.

An additional 54 clinics were opened during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020,

with three more rounding off the portfolio that same year. In 2021, Upstream expanded further, opening more than 150 new clinics and acquiring Results Physiotherapy, enabling it to be granted the title of largest provider dedicated to outpatient physical therapy in the United States.

Mergers and acquisitions play a crucial role in growth

Jeff Petet is Vice President of Information Technology for Upstream, overseeing the company’s strategic planning, implementation, and management of all IT functions. Before joining Upstream, he led a global software development team, having

“I LOVE WORKING FOR AN INDUSTRY WHOSE PRIMARY AIM IS TO HELP PEOPLE ACHIEVE OPTIMAL HEALTH; IT REALLY MAKES A DIFFERENCE”

JEFF PETET VICE PRESIDENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, UPSTREAM REHABILITATION

previously graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from The University of Tennessee, Chattanooga.

“I love working in healthcare,” says Petet. “I love working for an industry whose primary aim is to help people achieve optimal health; it really makes a difference. You're not just manufacturing widgets; you're working for a company that is there to help people.”

A high point for Petet’s team arrived, in his words, with the successful merger between Upstream and Drayer Physical Therapy in 2018, shortly after Upstream announced the completion of four partnership acquisitions in Washington, Colorado, Oregon and Tennessee, expanding its portfolio of physical therapy businesses.

"We evaluate many expansion opportunities every year looking for strategic partners that share our business philosophy and core values," said Dave Van Name, Upstream Founder and Senior Advisor. "Our merger with Drayer Physical Therapy, in addition to our newest partnership acquisitions, provides a tremendous opportunity to combine the strength of these businesses, continue our growth, and advance our goal to become the provider and employer of choice in the industry."

At the time, the combination of Upstream and Drayer created a single network of more than 560 owned-and-managed clinics in 27 states, serving over four million patients annually. “It took us almost two years to complete all the merger activities on the IT side,” says Petet. “But that success was pivotal to ensuring the future growth of Upstream.”

Exceptional care requires highest levels of clinical education

Upstream and its professional development organisation, Upstream Rehab Institute (URI), provide high-quality and innovative

JEFF PETET

TITLE: VICE PRESIDENT OF

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

INDUSTRY: WELLNESS SERVICES

LOCATION: TENNESSEE, US

Jeff Petet is a Certified Healthcare CIO and the Vice President of Information Technology for Upstream Rehabilitation, the leading provider of outpatient physical therapy in the United States with over 1200 locations. He is responsible for setting the IT vision for Upstream, including overseeing strategic planning, implementation, and management of all IT functions for the organisation.

Jeff has over 25 years of experience in leadership positions for several organisations in a variety of industries. Jeff has a Bachelor of Science degree

EXECUTIVE BIO

MCA, as your trusted I.T. advisor, gives you the freedom to focus on your business

Service offerings:

• Equipment configuration, rollout and project management

• Cloud hosting and Data center located in Chattanooga, TN

• Nationwide repair services

• 24/7 help desk located in Chattanooga, TN

• Asset management and inventory control

JEFF PETET VICE PRESIDENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, UPSTREAM REHABILITATION

post-professional education for all clinical associates who join the Upstream family. The company recognises the difference between average and exceptional care, the latter requiring the highest levels of clinical education and training. For this reason, Upstream is dedicated to leveraging its expert faculty and innovative delivery methods to offer the ultimate in post-professional clinical education via residency, fellowship, and continuing education programmes.

Upstream offers a competitive and comprehensive benefits programme to all of its associates, including: standard health benefits, featuring medical, dental, and vision options; ancillary health options, including short-term and long-term disability and company-paid life insurance; a health savings account, a flexible spending account and a 401(k).

In addition, Upstream provides all of its associates with paid time off, company-paid holidays, a company-paid volunteer day, annual continuing education allotments for clinical staff, adoption assistance, employee assistance programmes and access to a MedBridge learning management account.

Upstream understands that choosing a partner is one of the most important decisions a business owner will ever make, according to Upstream CEO Ronald Kuerbitz.

“YOU'RE NOT JUST MANUFACTURING WIDGETS; YOU'RE WORKING FOR A COMPANY THAT IS THERE TO HELP PEOPLE”

UPSTREAM REHABILITATION

“Whether you are looking for a partner to help accelerate your growth, to provide leadership and professional development opportunities, or to begin developing an exit strategy, aligning yourself with the right one is critically important.

“We have more than 600 partners that chose Upstream because they recognised the value of the resources we provide to help them achieve their goals. We’re flexible in how we approach each partnership, and we understand that each of our partners may have different goals depending on their stage in life and future plans.”

The Upstream mission is to inspire and empower the lives they touch, to serve its communities, and lead with purpose-driven passion, says Kuerbitz: “We work diligently with our partners to provide excellent patient care, create more access to therapy in our communities, and ensure that therapy services are at the forefront.”

Technology partners helps Upstream discover new technology

Upstream has grown more than 700 percent in the time Petet has been with the company. “When I joined, we had roughly 1,100 associates in fewer than 200 locations. Today, we have almost 8,000 associates and more than 1,200 locations. That has been a great deal of growth, in terms of technology to keep up with, over the last eight years.”

Upstream employs several company-wide initiatives to continually improve efforts to collect, measure, and deliver the best clinical outcomes across the company. These include clinician development programmes, continuing education courses and resources, and independent and group learning opportunities that include grand rounds, physician shadowing, and journal clubs.

Upstream’s Committee of Clinical Excellence – composed of Senior Therapists who lead panels in education, mentor support, professional engagement, student programmes, and outcomes – helps the company ensure all clinical associates provide world-class patient care and deliver best-in-class patient outcomes.

JEFF PETET VICE PRESIDENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, UPSTREAM REHABILITATION

“We also have great working relationships with our technology partners,” says Petet. “I would say that we operate with them as true partners, not just vendors. Our partners help us discover new technology, expand our technology expertise, and increase our business performance by improving our associates' performance with that new technology.”

MCA Technology Solutions has been a partner of Upstream prior to Petet’s joining the company, but he says 2019 saw MCA become a strategic partner. “At that time, we were actively going through the largest merger in company history that began in 2018,” he says. “We were experiencing a lot of turnover on our Tier 1 Service Desk team. I learned that MCA had a lot of experience

“IT TOOK US ALMOST TWO YEARS TO COMPLETE THE MERGER ON THE IT SIDE, BUT THAT WAS PIVOTAL TO FUTURE GROWTH”

in managing service desks for other large organizations and the great customer service they could deliver.

Petet made the decision in mid-2019 to outsource his Tier 1 Service Desk team to MCA and describes it as one of the best decisions in his tenure at Upstream. “We saw immediate improvements across the board on our Service Desk metrics,” says Petet. “Again, our clinicians and back-office associates may not even be aware that we have outsourced our Tier 1 because we treat them as Upstream associates, and they represent themselves as Upstream associates. It has truly been a great partnership.”

Cybersecurity a challenge as healthcare industry targeted Petet says he faces many challenges in his role, but a number of them loom large each day – including staffing issues (“Find the right people at the right time,” is his mantra) and interoperability when working with both partners and third-party service providers. “We're doing a lot of joint ventures, so we have to ensure that our systems can integrate with each other,” he explains.

The ongoing digital transformation of the business also keeps his team very busy. “We’re using technology to optimise processes for our associates, so they can better serve our patients,” says Petet. “And, unfortunately, cybersecurity is a challenge due to healthcare continuing to be the

target of bad actors. Cybersecurity – and information security in general – is very important to me.”

Petet continues: “I'm always here to be a proponent for the information security field, especially in healthcare, because we need to keep our systems online”

Technology is embedded throughout the Upstream ecosystem of companies, explains Petet, thus producing a large amount of internal and external data sets. “And the integration of that data allows us to see how we're doing compared to our appearance in the industry, how our patients feel, and how we're doing against our internally-set benchmarks,” he says.

“Having this data available in near-realtime allows our leaders to make quick data-driven decisions that support and improve the patient experience, while also previewing a clinician experience with better outcomes for our patients at lower costs.

“When it comes to digital transformation, we’re using technology not just to modernise existing processes, but also to revamp the processes. It's all people-process technology, so you're using technology to automate things where you can,” says Petet. “And that's one of the things that we want to do: we want our clinicians to operate at top of licence by automating as much as possible.”

“WE HAVE GREAT WORKING RELATIONSHIPS WITH OUR TECHNOLOGY PARTNERS; WE OPERATE WITH THEM AS TRUE PARTNERS, NOT JUST VENDORS”

JEFF PETET VICE PRESIDENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, UPSTREAM REHABILITATION