S5: BONUS Episode: What the HealthTech: Christmas Special - Moments That Moved Us

Speaker A: Hi.

Speaker B: What the Health tech listeners.

Speaker C: I'm your host this week, Justine Abson. Welcome to our, uh, Christmas special. As we wrap up the year, we're taking a look back through seasons four and five to revisit some of our most memorable what the health tech moments which have been shared by our incredible guests. From the weird and wonderful to the deeply emotional and inspiring, these stories have captured the heart of health and social care and, of course, our listeners. So grab a warm drink, get cosy and join us as we celebrate these moments that all make us really proud to be part of the healthcare community.

Speaker B: This is something we ask everyone about what their health tech moment is. Um, so at this point, we normally get a story about something weird, inspiring, emotional, something that's happened to you in your career within, um, health and social care that you would want to share with our listeners.

Speaker D: Well, do you know one of the things, and it really involves technology. I went to a care service and I saw a man who had been to Hospital with UTIs five times in six months. And then a very cheap bit of technology, a Fitbit, was fitted to this man and it identified slight changes in activity patterns and slight changes in body temperature were prelude to uti. They had a prescribing nurse in that service who then prescribed a, uh, drug. So this man, m never had a hospital admission for the last 11 months of his life. What was really, really powerful, though, was talking to his daughter about how much his life had been improved and how much her life had been improved by taking away the worry that her father was always going to be going in and out of hospital. There was also, of course, the benefit that that really had an impact on the system generally. It was good for him, it was good for the care provider, it was good for the nhs and that about technology transforming somebody's life. And the important bit for me, though, was talking to his daughter. And I suddenly saw, because I'd seen this from the perspective of saying, oh, it's great. No hospital admissions, oh, it's great. Members of staff didn't have to go to hospital, but actually it was great for him and it was great for his daughter. And that reminded me that I needed to refocus my priorities and put the people who use services absolutely at the start of the conversation rather than at the end of it.

Speaker B: I think that's so important and something we need to take back. I think at Radar Healthcare as well, you know, we're saying about tech and we talk about the people who are going to use it, but it's people who are going to benefit from it. I think we need to keep at the heart of what we're doing. Thank you so much. I wish we had another two hours because I think there's a lot of debate and conversation to have, but so many things that we can do. And what I would say is across all of our partners, we hear this appetite to want to do the right thing and want to change the system so it can only be the start point of something amazing happening.

Speaker E: Last time I talked about my great grandmother and my mum almost setting the house on fire and she used that little red button. So this one is about my grandmother. So it's my great grandmother's daughter. So my nana. So my nana had kind of end of life care at her home and she was kind of, you know, she was in the last few months and it was a really simple moment where essentially the care support staff member said, you know, you down here is Lisa. How would you like us to refer? And we'd always known her as Lisa my whole life. Yeah, that was her name. And she turned around and said, um, Elizabeth. And we were all sitting there going, sorry, what? And then my nan told us that my late grandfather, who turns out probably wasn't the most fabulous of people, um, had basically said to her when they got married, elizabeth's too long, so your name's Lisa now. So she had spent her whole adult life called Lisa because of her then husband's essentially decree that he couldn't be bothered to say Elizabeth. And then literally in that last two months, she went exclusively by the name Elizabeth. Wow. And we had our first daughter during that time, so we gave her the middle name Elizabeth to kind of stamp that out. But it was just such a fascinating moment when you realize that in that last moment, just that simple question of what would you like to be called led to someone almost going, you know what, I've got nothing to lose now, but call me Elizabeth. And I thought that was a. It was just, it was a surreal moment for us because I wasn't there going, no, that's not your name. And then realizing, no, no, it is, it is her name. And it was her name. And in that moment she had the confidence to go, actually, I make the rules on this. These are my last few months. I'm making the rules. My name isn't Lisa anymore, it's Elizabeth for me.

Speaker F: Um, I got married four days before my dad passed away. And, um, my, what the hell moment is the time when I went to see my dad, um, after we'd got married at the register office and before we went out for a meal and it was the most precious moment I could possibly ask for. He hardly could open his eyes, but he knew I was there.

Speaker G: Ah.

Speaker F: He smelt the bouquet that I was carrying and he had a conversation with my husband. And it was the most precious and special moment. And, um, I will remember that forever.

Speaker A: Oh, Helen, you got me well enough. Honestly, literally, that just touched me. I was like, oh, gosh, sorry. Yeah, definitely. Um, Honestly, I can just imagine what it was like and um, um, for you especially to know that and such a. Such an amazing family bond that, you know, that you managed to be able to do it in time and your dad was there and I suppose it's like the smelling of the flowers as well. It's like that other. It's that other element. It's not just. We haven't just got one sense of being able to talk. It's like it's everything else. So bringing that in.

Speaker F: Yeah, definitely. Um, it was just very special and what a moment to treasure. I wouldn't have it any other way. So I'll dedicate this to my wonderful father Peter, who sadly passed away in November.

Speaker A: Well, thank you. Thank you so much for joining us. Um, thank you for sharing so much, for being so open, so transparent and so vulnerable as well. We really do appreciate it.

Speaker H: So this was the one question that, yeah, I sort of really thought hard on and wanted to, you know, share a. Share a good moment. Um, so it is radar related. Um, and it was so, um. A couple of years ago when I was working for Avery, we had our company conference and I was asked to, um, along with a colleague, do a presentation on the cqc, you know, the new ways of working with and what those changes meant for us as a company, but for us as uh, the whole health and social care sector. And um, because we were working with Radar at the time, we invited our uh, um, Radar success manager along. Um, and he was actually sitting in the conference when I was giving my presentation and we were talking about the new evidence categories for cqc. Um, and as we know m, it was capturing feedback from our, um, residents and um, their loved ones about their experience in the home. Capturing feedback from health professionals and external stakeholders that visit homes and also staff, um, workforce feedback. So I'd given the presentation, um, came off the stage without falling down the stairs, which is always, ah, was a bonus and naturally it was. Mark, our success manager at the time, just came over to me in the coffee break and Said, you know, what, what you were just saying about CQC and the evidence categories, then, um, we could do something, you know, we could work something on radar. And I think at that point, you know, we were seeing radar, uh, as, you know, that, that compliance, but from an accident incident, complaints, you know, sort of what, what's gone wrong, um, and actually hadn't thought about using the system, about, you know, capturing what we do right, but also capturing that feedback as to what we could do better. So the conference was over, um, and very quickly, quickly I had a teams call just to sort of talk through how we could do it and met with, uh, activities, um, sort of director at the time. And we sat down and we just wrote our feedback event. So, you know, what, what are the questions that we would ask our health professionals? What are the questions we would ask our, uh, residents and their loved ones and, and friends that are coming into the home? Um, and. And very quickly we've created these events. So a resident feedback event and a relative and visitor feedback event. Um, I would say within two weeks we were able to pull everything together. We created our QR code posters for our reception areas, for our resident spaces. We incorporated the resident feedback into our resident of the day that we were, um, completing at the time, and also created a bespoke dashboard, um, for showing off the feedback that we'd gathered. So I think it was light bulb moment at that time for me was, like I said, we'd seen the system as capturing those risks and of course all the things that we need to monitor. Um, but actually we could use the system for other areas, um, and having the dashboards, reading the feedback in the first place and then having the dashboards that we could share on our. You said we did boards in our reception areas, sharing them with some QC inspectors, local authority visits. Um, yeah, it was just to see how responsive we could be. So if there was a change that actually we could very quickly create an event, get that message out there and then, you know, start evidencing that data. And from there as well, we then went on to write what else could we use Radar for? And the next thing we chose was our, um, company award nominations. So on a manual process, um, of getting those nominations in, I think the year before we'd had sort of close to 20 nominations. We added it to radar so that all staff groups could go on and nominate individuals. And we were inundated. We had sort of 430, um, nominations. Yeah. So huge, Huge. So I think, as I said about a light bulb Moment of what else could we use the system for? Um, yeah, and I'm sure there's, there's lots more, lots more ideas out there as well.

Speaker G: So it does have a tech focus, but it's about people. So, um, I, um, I don't think of myself as a techie person. I did work, as I say, in technology for, for quite a while, um, health technology for a while. But I don't think of myself as a particularly techie person. But one of the most emotional moments that I've ever had was one of my nursing colleagues. So one of my team in a previous role, um, stood in front of a room of about 40 soft developers and made them cry. And the way that he made them cry. So, uh, he is still a clinical digital nurse, um, but he was a critical care nurse. He worked in icu. And as is usually the case with clinicians, we find it quite difficult when we come out of clinical practice, particularly I think, if you're moving into digital roles, because at first it can feel like you're really far away from the patient and you think, oh my goodness, I'm not making a difference to patients anymore. Um, and we were able to demonstrate to him what a difference he was making that day when he made 30 men, grown men, cry. M Because we had been, we uh, actually were developing our own electronic patient record. Crazy idea. Don't suggest anybody does it. But that's what we were doing. Um, and we were implementing, um, what was, uh, the process of risk assessing patients for their VTE risk. So it's your risk of getting a blood clot or in your leg or your lung. Typically, um, um, when you're in hospital, if you've had surgery, you are more at risk of having one of these blood clots. And um, the team of developers were the people that had developed within the system the ability to code people. And we used to kind of traffic light them as to their risk levels. So they were green, they weren't at particular risk, amber, they had a little bit of risk, or red, they were at significant risk. And because they had built it in the electronic patient record, he was able to show them the data. So that a patient had had their VT risk recorded. They'd therefore been started on treatment really early in their pathway and they'd been prevented from having an episode which would have meant that they potentially had died. And so those 30 software developers never came into health care because they thought that they were going to have a direct impact on somebody's life, really did. Um, and it was incredible. And they all were in tears and my colleague remembered why he was both a nurse and a digital clinician.

Speaker C: That is absolutely amazing. I think that that's that point about actually, like developers and people behind the scenes, if you like. Again, you know, it's. They don't really always know that impact of the day to day.

Speaker G: Absolutely. That's why. Yeah. You know, sort of thinking about stories for that. It's something that stuck with me that. I mean, that's probably 10 years ago now, but it stuck with me because it's just, um. Yeah. Really important from both perspectives. It's really hard as clinicians to not always be thinking you're making a difference for patients, but you are. Um, and then also, as you say, for people behind the scenes to really understand what an impact they can have for patient care.

Speaker B: So this is. It kind of ties into what I'm saying. And forgive me if I've told this story before because it's one of my favourites, but I remember sitting in a conference about tech with loads of people from hospitals sat, um, frontline users, really. And, uh, they had drones, they had all this latest tech and gadgets and there was like drones flying around and this was gonna revolutionize everyone was. All the presenters were super excited about the tech. And I always remember these ladies sat there and I won't say it directly because there's some expletives, but like I could just normal log on. Um, that would help me. I just want a log onto my system. And again, it's that example of, you know, it's exciting, it's brilliant, it's so great. But we've got to work with people, we've got to do it in a way that's practical and usable.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: And I think as well, it doesn't

Speaker H: matter how flashy it is, but if

Speaker C: it doesn't work, it doesn't work.

Speaker B: Exactly, exactly. And what it could do is brilliant. But if it doesn't do it day

Speaker C: to day and going back to log on thing. I don't know how many times, like I've been on something, you know, like you've been online shopping or something and you can't remember your password and then it's kicking you out and you're going through.

Speaker G: Yeah.

Speaker B: It is a nightmare and it just ruins it then. And then you don't use it and you don't adopt it.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker B: So, yeah, maybe that's it. Maybe that's my final thing. Like help people remember the passwords.

Speaker E: Yeah.

Speaker C: You can start to do single Sign on.

Speaker B: Yeah. Single sign on. Yeah.

Speaker I: Well, you know, the temptation coming, you know, someone who works in technology every day is to talk about, you know, funny experiences of, you know, training AI tools to, you know, and, um, what sort of unusual things have happened there or around building digital twins. But I'm actually share very personal one, because I think, actually, although we're talking about technology, we always go back, we should go back to what is the purpose of it. And it's really to help patient outcomes and to have better personal care. And mine was my, uh. When my first child was born, we just had the most incredible experience at St. George's Hospital. He arrived a month early. We had no family around, as you can hear from my accent, um, not naturally from the uk. And we went in and Diane, who was our, uh, um, midwife, was just incredible and we had, uh, a water birth and just the most, um, tender personal experience. Although, you know, Diane, as a midwife was delivering literally thousands of babies. You just felt that that moment was so special and for you. And that's what healthcare does so incredibly well. And if we can enable people to do that. And the only advice I'd also give to anybody who's considering a water birth is at no stage do they tell you that, um, you might be kneeling on a very hard tiled, uh, floor for about four hours. And you, as the father, at no time can be saying, actually, by the way, my knees are hurting, could I have a cush?

Speaker F: You.

Speaker I: And you're literally sort of frozen at the end. Um, so that would be to. My one advice to anybody who's having that is make sure you tuck your cushion under your arm and going for that, uh, water birth. M. But I can only have praise for the NHS and what the healthcare professionals do day in and day out. For us, it's easy. We work in a technology that's predictable, that's, you know, binary, that we can think. But those people in the, you know, who are caring for individuals every day, doing an incredible job. So thank you.

Speaker C: Thank you so much for joining us today and a huge thank you to everyone for your continued support throughout the year. We'd like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a happy New Year. We'll be back in early 2026 with many more inspiring new episodes. In the meantime, don't forget to rate and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And if you have any questions for us, our guests, or you'd like to feature in a future episode, please email what the healthtechadarhealthcare.com.