With a new year upon us, we’ve been asking health tech leaders to look to the year ahead and share their perspectives on digital priorities for 2024. Read more from Highland Marketing’s market leading clients
We’ve been looking ahead to 2024 and asking health tech leaders what they expect to see in health tech this year.
The chair of our advisory board, Jeremy Nettle, argues that with a general election approaching, the NHS needs a period of stability to address the pressures it is facing.
Yet, despite the challenges, our clients expect to see advances in electronic patient records and shared care records, and exciting developments in everything from imaging to the deployment of AI.
After all, they stress, technology is no longer a luxury but an essential component in delivering a more efficient and effective NHS – capable of meeting the needs of a complex, digital society.
Jeremy Nettle, chair of the Highland Marketing advisory board, said:
“We are all aware that the NHS is facing significant pressure.
“The Covid backlog, workforce shortages, and growing financial deficits can only escalate if they are not addressed as the country moves towards a general election.
“Whichever party forms the next government will find that additional funding is going to be necessary – even if it is linked to more “reform” – and it needs to be linked to the greater use of technology.
“Technology is no longer a nice thing to have. It is essential to deliver a more efficient and effective NHS that is able to respond to the needs of our complex, digitising society.
“Unfortunately, organisations have been starved of the capital they need to invest in basic infrastructure and core systems, and too much IT funding is reserved for national programmes.
“A big idea for that new government would be to give digital leaders the stability they need to make sustained investments.
“We also need to address social care and the social determinants of health.
“But only a sustainable, long-term approach can work through the challenges, with technology being at the heart, to provide a world class service.”
Paul Charnley, senior healthcare advisor for St Vincents Consulting, said:
“This year is going to be hard financially, and there will be uncertainty as we approach a general election.
“Responding to service pressures will cause those with electronic patient records to look to optimise the benefits from their investment.
“We will shift our attention from who has EPRs to who is using them to best effect.
“More digital services will move to the cloud and the NHS will need to learn how to manage the process in a more coordinated way across integrated care systems.
“Cyber security is still a very real threat to the NHS and someone somewhere in the health and care system will succumb to a cyber-attack.
“People will learn from it, but security is a constant battle and it will be well worth continuing to harden our defenses and practice our response.”
Mark Hindle, vice president, EMEA, Orion Health, said:
“It’s going to be a busy year in the shared care records space.
“Every integrated care system has a shared care record in place, so NHS England is focused on making sure they are used. It also wants to see these records developed.
“ICSs have been asked to draw up plans for what is known as the minimum viable solution 2, and we will be helping our customers to achieve it.
