Technical Transformation in the Healthcare Sector

We’ve been providing Microsoft Dynamics Solutions for over 10 years now, so we know a good idea when we see one. That’s why when Microsoft approached us at AlfaPeople about the opportunity to work with Verita, a leading independent investigations consultancy in the healthcare sector, we leaped at the chance. Healthcare is a sector in need of technological transformation. On consulting with both Verita and Microsoft, we knew that this was a real opportunity to make a difference, and the result is our revolutionary new product, Eva.

Now, incident investigation in healthcare is nothing new. With such a high number of people going through hospital doors, mistakes unfortunately happen. So incident investigation is all about getting to the root cause of what went wrong and how it can be avoided in the future. The current manual process for incident investigation is, however, time-consuming, convoluted and non-standardised, attributes that already stretched frontline staff find increasingly frustrating in their time-poor world. And that?s where we knew that together we could create something that truly makes a difference. Eva totally transforms the way that serious incident investigations are conducted in healthcare across the UK. It?s an app that standardizes the process, is incredibly intuitive to use – guiding users seamlessly through the process and offering instant tips and advice, while being cost-effective and easy to install with existing IT systems. So the benefits are comprehensive, and everyone from frontline staff to IT technicians and boardroom members will be able to see the benefits. Of course, the ultimate beneficiaries are patients, who will see better safety and better care because that?s what better investigations lead to.

And because it?s cloud-based, healthcare investigators will finally have the opportunity to make informed insights and identify trends through anonymised data aggregation and thematic analysis – allowing them to act quickly if the investigation reveals a reoccurring issue, and learn vital lessons for future practice, it will ultimately mean a reduction in the number of overall serious incidents. By creating better patient safety, reducing insurance premiums and lowering litigation costs, more time and money can be devoted to what healthcare is all about ? spending more of its budget on improving the quality of patient care.

Another key consideration that we have addressed with Eva is the need to keep patients and families informed of the progress of investigations; the Eva portal allows them to log in at any time and check what stage the investigation is at. What?s more, they can arrange meetings, submit evidence and view reports via the system, meaning that the process is much more transparent, and patients and families feel included and fully informed, which is vital in what is often already a challenging and distressing time for them.

Eva is a 21st-century product designed with the users in mind. In a healthcare sector already stretched to the limit, we believe we?ve created a tool in partnership with Verita and Microsoft that will make an incredible difference, now and long into the future. We are already planning a wide range of product developments for our investigation app in 2019 – and new apps are in the pipeline for next year too – to further modernize and transform safety and care within the healthcare sector.