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By Kelly Bevington Senior Category Manager – Digital & IT NHS Shared Business Services |
As a team, we’re always looking to evolve our framework agreement offering to ensure we’re meeting our customer needs. With our current Artificial Intelligence (AI) offerings – Artificial Intelligence (AI) Software in Neuroscience for Stroke Decision Support and Artificial Intelligence (AI), Imaging and Radiotherapy Equipment, Associated Products and Diagnostic Imaging due to expire, we wanted to bring together the wealth of experience of these framework agreements into one comprehensive offering that – to quote Lord Darzi’s independent review, helps take the NHS above the “foothills of digital transformation.”
AI has the potential to transform NHS patient care, speeding up diagnosis and treatment times by ensuring that expert clinical resource is targeted where it has the greatest impact for the patient. Our new framework agreement will focus on the application of AI in different specialities by providing new efficient ways to prevent, diagnose, treat illness and optimise clinical workflow.
AI in healthcare uses machine learning (ML), natural language processing (NLP), and deep learning (DL), to improve patient care, hospital operations, and expenses.
It can help with a variety of tasks, including:
- Accurate Diagnosis through the analysis large amounts of data.
- Effective treatment plans by recommending solutions.
- Preventive care by helping screenings and producing results faster.
- Resource management by helping health professionals manage their resources more effectively.
- Specialised support for organisations in their attempt to adapt smart technology.
Why AI?
The use of decision support and AI meets key objectives in the NHS Long Term Plan. It supports with:
- Decision support and artificial intelligence (AI) to help clinicians in applying best practice, eliminate unwarranted variation across the whole pathway of care, and support patients in managing their health and condition.
- Predictive techniques to support local health systems to plan care for populations.
- Intuitive tools to capture data as a by-product of care in ways that empower clinicians and reduce the administrative burden.
- Encouraging a world leading health IT industry in England with a supportive environment for software developers and innovators.
The framework agreement will be (provisionally) split into six lots:
Lot 1: Radiology and diagnostic imaging
Early detection and diagnostic through data analysis and medical imaging for radiology and diagnostic imaging such as neurology, oncology, cardiology, urology and ophthalmology.
Lot 2: Pathological diagnosis and early detection
Early detection and diagnostic through data analysis and medical imaging for pathology such as haematology, virology and dermatology.
Lot 3: Predictive analytics
Solutions which improve patient flow and experience by making well informed decisions based on health records (system interoperability), hospital admissions and discharge and patient appointments.
Lot 4: Research and development
Applications to support cross institution collaboration and research such as drug discovery and clinical trials.
Lot 5: Operational efficiency
Solutions to optimise clinical workflow such as resource management and supply chain management.
Lot 6: Specialist support
Artificial Intelligence specialist support such as consultancy, implementation and training.
As a customer, if you have an interest in AI, or are looking to implement AI in the future, we would value your input in shaping this framework agreement, please contact me on: kelly.bevington3@nhs.net.
Please note, the Healthcare AI Solutions Framework Agreement is at the early stage of development and therefore may be subject to change following more detailed analysis of the market.