“Organisations will have control of the data through the use of open data standards and will also control the frontend user experience. Better’s role will be both, as delivering innovative solutions and enabling an ecosystem of applications that improve person-centred care,” is how Ian Bennett describes the future of digital healthcare.
Ian Bennett is a product specialist at the Better UK & Ireland team. He is an educated pharmacist who has switched careers to healthcare IT and is now mostly working with different NHS projects Better is involved in. “Given my experience working across different NHS organisations and continually working with them, I understand problems at the micro level of individuals and also at the macro level of organisations and systems,” he said. And why does he like working for Better? Because he aligns with the company’s vision of how digital healthcare should be delivered and can be transformative. To get to know Ian better, read the interview below.
As a product specialist in the UK team, what does your typical day at work look like?
Varied! I usually engage with one of our NHS customer projects each day. The support I provide for these projects is wide-ranging and can include scoping and defining integration workflows, including with national systems – NHS App, GP Connect,… or it could focus on helping customers maximise clinical outcomes utilising the product stack whilst ensuring that clinical risk is mitigated. I work on presales as well, which includes writing bid responses, giving demos and scoping deliverables within Statements of Work. I have been fortunate enough to see projects such as OneLondon UCP right from initial bid responses to giving demos (including hackathon), from contract award to scoping the work in phases, delivery and go-live. Today, I am still a continual part of the project team as we continue to work with OneLondon UCP to deliver additional benefits with the solution.
You have a master’s degree in pharmacy, and you worked as a pharmacist in the NHS. Why did you decide to change direction and move into healthcare IT?
During an EPR implementation at the NHS trust where I was working, I was enrolled as a super user for the project. I also had a lead role in educating other healthcare professionals regarding medicines governance at the trust, including overseeing electronic prescribing training and assurance for new starters – i.e. junior doctor rotations. This allowed me to see first-hand how healthcare IT could affect my work and colleagues in the trust for better or for worse. I felt I had good ideas to improve the EPR system but it felt impossible to get these implemented given the feature enhancement process. So, when I had the opportunity to shape digital healthcare products and bring these ideas into being from a supplier side, this felt like a perfect fit.
How did your background as a pharmacist in the NHS shape you and your approach to working with digital healthcare today?
It helped and continues to help me work in an evidence-based way. When assessing and optimising a patient’s medications, changes and recommendations are based on evidence and frameworks such as NICE guidelines. Even so, not everything is clear-cut, so you must make decisions and be able to provide comprehensive reasoning. This carries over – for example – factoring in user feedback into product-based decisions, weighing up clinical safety risks of new features, etc. I also think it’s important to work within a multidisciplinary team… I used to work with other pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, doctors, nurses, dieticians, etc., and now I work with UX designers, project managers, business analysts, marketing, software engineers, QA analysts, etc.
You have worked directly with the NHS, so you have direct insights into its functioning. How does that help you better understand the needs of NHS partners today?
I have worked across multiple organisations within the NHS, so you understand that there are many organisations, each with its individual challenges, incentives, and processes, under the NHS umbrella. Having worked in a busy clinical environment, I understand the context of problems and how they ultimately relate to delivering patient care. Given my experience working across different NHS organisations and continually working with them, I understand problems at the micro level of individuals and also at the macro level of organisations and systems.
How do you see the future of digital healthcare evolving, particularly within the NHS? What role does Better play in this transformation?
I think digital is now seen as the key enabler to tackling healthcare challenges globally rather than a secondary consideration. Transformation of healthcare services will be delivered because of digital solutions rather than existing processes being digitised that add to staff burden and workload. The NHS is creating a 10-year plan which we know will have digital at the heart of it which is different to having a sidelined digital healthcare strategy. Alongside this, there are new laws that will mandate interoperability (Data Use and Access Bill). I think this will shift the value of solutions to be derived from the end-user experience and functionality they provide and not through their ability to integrate their own modules through accessing data locked into vendor-specific proprietary data stores. I see Better’s role as both delivering innovative solutions and enabling an ecosystem of applications that improve person-centred care. More of the solutions that Better, our partners and our customers deliver will be through the low-code platform that is already heavily used within implementations. Provider organisations will have control of the data through the use of open data standards and will also control the front-end user experience. No answer here would be complete without referencing that across Better, NHS, and globally, we will need to harness the potential of a new revolutionary wave of technologies, such as AI and synthetic biology, in a safe and effective manner.
Do you have a role model or someone who has really influenced your career so far?
During my time at Better, I have been fortunate to work closely with many of the people whose work in digital healthcare I frequently read, such as Ian McNicoll, Alastair Allen, and Gary McAllister. Ian McNicoll first sparked my interest in openEHR and clinical informatics, and now we regularly engage in discussions and debates. Alastair produces brilliant thought leadership pieces within the digital healthcare space, and observing his approach has inspired me to pursue more of this myself. Gary’s book is an excellent introductory guide to digital healthcare in the NHS, and I learned a lot from the wider OneLondon UCP team, especially in their approach to clinical governance.
As a father of two young kids, how do you balance your working everyday with family life?
Having flexibility within my work really helps. My boss has three young kids himself, so he is very understanding, as is the rest of the team when family life has to take precedence. I take my work very seriously and am fortunate to really enjoy it, but it is never at the cost of being a good dad and husband.
Within the UK team, you all work remotely. How do you keep the team connected, and where do you see the benefits and disadvantages of having a remote team?
We have a virtual weekly meeting every week, which we use to jointly write up the UK&I market’s weekly updates for the wider business. We also meet face to face regularly throughout the year, where we’ll have strategy and planning sessions but also factor in time to catch up and do a social team activity.
What does Better mean to you?
It’s more than just a company I work for. This is because I align with the company’s vision of how digital healthcare should be delivered and can be transformative. Also, because of the friends I have made here throughout the company, I definitely learn something new each day, which is really important to me. The two things I like most about working for Better are that there are so many extremely talented people who have been with the company for a very long time (way before it was called Better). Finally, I like that it is of sufficient size that things are well organised and structured but small enough that things remain quick-paced and agile.
