A view from Softcat’s Healthcare Brewtanix event – 5 key takeaways

On the 8th December, we hosted our first Integrated Care Brewtanix event for 70 of our key Healthcare customers. As always, when deciding what to present, we speak to our customers for feedback on what challenges they are facing. The overwhelming feedback we had was around EPR’s and clinical applications, so we partnered with Nutanix to discuss how technology can help deliver these effectively.

We had 3 speakers; William Bowers (Nutanix Alliance Exec), Phillipa Winter (Integrated Care Chief Technologist) and Liam Birch (Nutanix Lead). I learnt a lot from the 2-hour session, but I would like to highlight 5 key points:

1. How far our Partnership with Nutanix has come

The first thing that struck me was how far the Softcat and Nutanix partnership has come. In my mind, Nutanix is still the new kid on the block and it was fascinating to see we've been partners for almost a decade and that we sold our first Nutanix solution in 2013. It was also incredible to see that we now have over 50 Public Sector customers with successful Nutanix deployments and have been awarded the title of “Nutanix Tech Champion” (one of only 3 in the UK). When making changes to clinically facing technology it is key that the customer/partner/reseller relationship is in sync, and it really felt that way during the session.

2. Unprecedented Demand 

My favourite portion of the presentation was by Phillipa Winter (Integrated Care Chief Technologist) and the first thing that struck me was how difficult the selection, deployment and maintenance of various clinical applications can be. Exactly how do we deliver care with the continuing unprecedented demand? It was brilliant to see Phillipa talk about the relative success of the NHS app and how it has created a pathway for other clinical applications to follow. Should we be investing in large scale monolithic applications, or taking our time to build bespoke? What are the respective benefits of doing either? What are the infrastructure demands of increasing our reliance on clinical applications (more on this in elasticity below)? Whatever path we choose it’s imperative that these applications act as a friend and not a foe.

3. Key framework for deploying Clinical Applications  

So once we have selected our applications what do we need to keep in mind whilst deploying them? Phillipa presented a framework which I think everyone took a lot from:

Empower Clinicians – We need to allow clinicians to maximise their time caring for patients. Other benefits include the reduction in operating costs once systems are automated and/or made error free.

Protecting Trusts – Not only do we face legal challenges through the likes of GDPR, but we have a moral responsibility to protect patient data and manage governance risk, yet balance this with the need to share information to improve care on the front line.

Improve Understanding – We can improve care pathways in several different ways. One of the most exciting areas being predictive analytics and ill health prevention, by leveraging ML and AI.

Enabling IT – IT teams are being asked to do more with less and it’s important that we are working hard to enable IT to embrace the benefits of digital innovation. Leveraging clinical influencers such as Multidisciplinary Chief Clinical Informatics Officers, including Doctors, Nurses and AHP’s form a key role in designing and enabling pathway improvements.   

4. Elasticity & agility is key

I loved this use of “elasticity” from Liam Birch’s session (Nutanix lead). As mentioned above, we have unprecedented and unpredictable demand on EPR’s and other clinical applications, which means that outside of performance (which remains key) we need agility and elasticity. If it is difficult to predict usage and growth, then it is important that these applications are hosted on a platform that can easily scale and leverage the cloud. Nutanix fits the bill.

5. The beer was amazing

There's no pressure or requirement to drink at these events but if you're into your beers, Siren is an AWESOME brewery, and the beer expert “Brodie” knew his stuff! Based out of Wokingham, Siren has been steadily growing and has over 100 different types of beer. We managed to sample a handful throughout the evening and my personal favourites were “Soundwave” and “Lumina”. One of our customers, Marc, highly recommended the “Broken Dreams” which wasn’t part of the sample pack but is something I will be buying in the lead up to Christmas!

Join our next Brewtanix event

I’ve attended hundreds of these events over the years, but I can honestly say that this was one of my favourites. A massive thank you to all the presenters but most importantly, to our customers who carved some time out to take part in this discussion at such a busy time of year.

If you missed this one, don’t worry. We run Brewtanix events all year round. Register your interest here if you’d like to be invited!