Splendid Unlimited

New reality, new solutions

First and foremost, COVID-19 represents an unprecedented health crisis and a major challenge to global governments, health services, individuals and retailers. They say that every crisis represents an opportunity in disguise. And, while it may be distasteful to some to speak of opportunity at a time of profound individual and societal loss, it is certainly true that the lifestyles and therefore the needs of patients, consumers, citizens have been changing and that businesses and organisations, both in healthcare and other sectors, have been flexing or pivoting their models to serve these needs. Crises have also, historically speaking, been times when new businesses have launched, and we are also seeing start-up activity in the current crisis.

Healthcare solutions have been rapidly developed and implemented, from the usual players but also from a raft of new sources, such as nimble start-ups and citizen developers/manufacturers or, in some cases (such as Decathlon working with Italian medical researchers to repurpose some of its snorkelling masks into ventilator masks) via innovative partnerships.

It has not, however, been a tale of uniform success. There have been high profile mis-steps: the Government’s Track & Trace app has been uniformly criticised for everything from poor data management to being overly demanding on users’ smartphone batteries. Innovation has been hampered by budget cuts, procurement processes made more difficult by remote working, economic uncertainty, depleted access to resources and lengthy decision-making. In addition, much of the effort has (perhaps understandably) been focused on addressing treatment at point of care, with concern rising that longer-term prevention (particularly of anything non-COVID related) has had to take a back seat and that we are storing up significant societal healthcare issues for the coming decade.

Bearing this in mind, it is particularly relevant to look at what needs still need to be (better) addressed and whether the current innovation landscape in the UK is fit for the purpose of addressing these needs.

Untapped opportunities

Of course, the crisis continues to evolve. New needs are arising all the time and, as well as the health aspects of the crisis, we seem likely to be entering very difficult economic times, we’re on the cusp of a tech revolution, in AI, 5G, automation, etc, and we still have a potentially catastrophic climate crisis to deal with.

This means that the innovation that we have seen in healthcare thus far is just the beginning. There are still unmet needs, or untapped opportunities to be explored. Clearly some of these will relate to very specific illnesses or treatment regimes but there are also some overarching general shortcomings within current digital healthcare provision, where innovation can definitely help:

• Leverage existing approaches (code, capabilities, or devices) that will shortcut your development process

• Avoid the temptation to over-engineer your product or service

• Treat innovation as a constant process rather than a singular one

• Keep in constant touch with your users and intermediaries to ensure you understand their needs and how these are changing

• Focus on successful patient/client onboarding

• Provide accurate data, recommended actions & prompts to compliance

• Provide levels of service and a quality of experience that is comparable to that found in the commercial sector

“Don’t feel you have to reinvent all elements of your service. Identify your superpower- the 20% that makes your service unique- and focus on that.”

John Cunningham UNLIMITED

“Keep in touch with your market and find out what problems they have, what solutions they need. You get the investment needed to deliver and then you make what they need, how they need it. And then you keep doing it, it’s not a one-off type of process but a cyclical one”

Giovanna Forte Forte Medical

“Those using your (health) service are using other services and apps too – Ocado or AirBnB, and they’ll expect the same levels of service from you as they get from them”

Benedict Ireland Splendid Unlimited

Is the current climate conducive to innovation?

The government has been vocal in its intention to create a vibrant culture of innovation in the UK. As far back as 2014, it set up Innovate UK as a non-departmental public body operating at arm's length from the Government as part of the United Kingdom Research and Innovation organisation. And, during the current crisis it has implemented the Coronavirus Future Fund, a co-investment scheme between the private and public sectors aimed at securing equity investment for start-up companies unable to access existing state-backed loan schemes. An initial tranche of £250 million is available between now and September 2020, with further potential funds to be kept under review.

However, amongst the innovators seeking to make use of this support structure there is cynicism and frustration. The frustration comes from dealing with the inevitable bureaucracy involved and the fact that the pots of money are finite. The cynicism is arguably and even more potent source of discouragement: Many feel like genuinely disruptive innovation is often actively disincentivised because it goes against the interests of the considerable sums of money represented by the status quo and the established big hitters:

“It can be something of a cruel game. There are so many vested interests involved in provision to the Public Sector; for instance, where a disruptor like us can save the NHS huge sums of money, a bigger business higher up the food chain will make less of it. Often, representatives from these businesses have lobbyists and advisory positions within Government and can ensure their interests protetected. It’s a poisoned chalice. In healthcare, public money is purchasing power but someone has to make sure that between public purse and private pocket, clinical improvements are delivered to the patient - and long-term health guaranteed to the NHS as well.”

Giovanna Forte Forte Medical

The innovation community needs to see more from government in terms of practical support. Investment funds are just the beginning. Government also needs to do more to facilitate innovation. One example is in the area of patient records – both the nature of the data, and the way they are accessed. Breaking down data silos would enable healthcare providers to easily compile an holistic view of the patient – the healthcare equivalent of Single Customer View – that could be invaluable in creating new services that transcend the traditional definitions of healthcare, merge into health and wellbeing and would provide better prevention, treatment and care:

“Having a culture of innovation is all well and good but at some points this needs to merge into something that is more practical and useful. There are lots of fundamentals that are broken that get in the way of true innovation – such as the way patient data sits in separate silos”

Benedict Ireland Splendid Unlimited

Implementing new solutions

Clearly, whatever its intrinsic merits, however meticulously it has been featured to meet a genuine consumer need, however carefully crafted its UX, any innovation hinges on its implementation into the marketplace. The right combination of distribution, pricing, promotion, and support is crucial for success.

“Any executive who has led a major change program knows that even the most carefully planned programs can fail because of mediocre implementation.”

McKinsey

As ever was the case, effective implementation hinges around removal of any barriers to rollout, clear processes, the effective communication between all the parties involved and the ability to make clear evidence-based business cases for the adoption of new approaches.

In some simpler cases, the implementation challenges are “merely” to do with understanding how the needs of customers, patients or users are changing and then gearing up to meet those changes even when working remotely. One example of a brand that did this is iPlato rapidly spun up video consultations in their myGP app. Not to minimise the challenges involved but it was a case of applying effort to meet the technical challenges.

Removing barriers

In some cases, though, those efforts are complicated by some external factor, such as the legislative landscape. One example of how the current situation has forced a different approach to the removal of such legislative barriers is Cera Care. Their USP is to revolutionise the way that care is provided to patients, by leveraging technology. Pre-COVID, strong legislation was rightly in place to ensure that caregivers were all certified (via DBS testing) but it was rather rigid and fixed, for understandable reasons. COVID provided a critical requirement for all, including Cera, to employ more carers and provide care quicker so there was a vital need to change the processes around DBS checks, effectively removing or reducing a barrier to implementation:

“You have to understand the blockers and push against them otherwise you’ll never truly move forward. If you can approve someone for a loan in 10 minutes why can’t you get them DBS approved quicker? So, we worked with the government to change the way in which DBS checks are implemented.”

Benedict Ireland Splendid Unlimited

Streamlining processes and changing mindsets

New ways of working have emerged throughout lockdown. Some were luckier in that they were already working in the ways that have now become commonplace for us all – regular contact between teams in different locations, heavy use of tools for collaborative working, increasingly reliance on automation, and so on. Teams that were used to working that way have more or less carried on as before. In other cases, businesses have been forced into adopting these new approaches, sometime reluctantly, with some inertia, some staff fighting to maintain the status quo and blocking change. These companies have definitely seen a drop in the velocity of delivery and their overall efficiency. But it is unlikely we’ll ever go back, and the status quo will change:

“We’ve seen a definite automation uptick – using automation to run parts of a process or to remove manual and/or repetitive tasks from a process particularly where you have teams split between remote and central (office) locations.”

John Cunningham UNLIMITED

Need for evidence to drive change

Implementation efforts often founder if they do not have compelling evidence of the benefits they bring.

This is true for the adoption of new product solutions: business cases built from user ratings, cost/benefits analysis, and so on is a fundamental part of getting product launches off the ground.

The same goes for working practices: while lockdown enforced a new way of working on all of us, there is no way that anyone would be seriously considering maintain remote working, or blended remote/office working if they hadn’t been able to see that it offers a great balance between work-life balance for staff and continued functionality and productivity for the business. We expect to see continued experimentation in blended approaches as businesses seek to get back to “normal” and they’ll rely on continuous monitoring of key metrics to ensure that the approaches they choose are fit for purpose:

“Evidence has to be the basic tenet for any kind of change, whether that is organisational working practices, or in trying to encourage someone to adopt a new product.”

Giovanna Forte Forte Medical

In summary, we are living in challenging times. One hesitates to (over)use the word “unprecedented”, but the combination of factors that are pushing down on consumers, businesses, legislators, inventors, entrepreneurs and healthcare providers alike call for new solutions and new ways of building those solutions.

Here's our 5 key takeways from our discussion:

• Identify your superpower- the 20% that makes your service unique- and focus on that.

• Keep in touch with your market and find out what problems they have, what solutions they need. You get the investment needed to deliver and then you make what they need, how they need it. And then you keep doing it, it’s not a one-off type of process but a cyclical one..

• Those using your (health) service are using other services and apps too – Ocado or AirBnB - and they’ll expect the same levels of service from you as they get from them. Look outside the category for inspiration..

• Having a culture of innovation is all well and good but at some point this needs to merge into something that is more practical and useful so be brave, learn fast and move on..

• Evidence has to be the basic tenet for any kind of change, whether that is organisational working practices, or in trying to encourage someone to adopt a new product.

Splendid UNLIMITED are an award-winning digital design and development agency who make digital experiences human. For over 20 years we've been transforming digital experiences for some of the world’s leading healthcare and well-being brands including Boots, Liz Earle and Cera Care through our digital made human approach.

We would love to discuss the value Splendid might unlock for your business and would welcome the opportunity to speak with you, so please do get in touch.