Streamlining hospital processes Hospitals need all the help they can get to manage patients successfully, says Elliott Engers, CEO of Infinity Health
A
s hospitals and healthcare outlets struggle to manage the after-effects of COVID-19, digital technologies offer many solutions. But it’s an uphill struggle for UK innovators as they try to convince the NHS to implement simple strategies that would make life easier for patients, clinicians and hospital staff. Elliott Engers, CEO of Infinity Health, puts it very clearly. “We just haven’t embraced 20
what technology is capable of doing,” he says. “From the moment someone enters an NHS hospital, the first interaction and beyond is fraught with inefficiencies and even clinical safety issues that patients may never be aware of. Healthcare moves at an unnecessarily slow pace which means it is far behind where it could be. “The process that’s designed to protect people and minimise risk is now introducing or perpetuating risk that
could be eliminated tomorrow with digital solutions,” he continues. “Other industries have spent 20 or 30 years developing new tools, and it’s clear to everyone that healthcare is lagging behind.” Many digital innovations are clinicianled, developed at the coal face by doctors looking to make their working lives easier. Where they can manage nearly every facet of their daily lives digitally, they are often still dependent on paper lists in their work environment. While Elliott himself doesn’t have a medical background, he developed the Infinity concept in conjunction with Dr Adam Benton, an orthopaedic surgeon. They had studied together at school, and when Elliott left university to join Virgin Records he saw how Apple disrupted the music industry with the invention of the iPod.
