Transform Gov - the digital government podcast

AI scribes can turn a consultation into a draft clinical record, giving clinicians more time to spend with patients. But what happens when you roll it out across the health service?

In this episode, we speak to Professor David Lowe, Clinical Director of Innovation at the University of Glasgow and a consultant in emergency medicine, about what it really takes to get AI scribes working in practice.

Here’s what you can learn:
🔹 Treat it as a pathway change. Think about how the technology works within the pathway, and how clinicians’ consultation style has to change.
🔹 Plan for consent from day one. Explain to patients that an AI scribe is in use, make it easy to opt out, and develop the conversation with patients and the public.
🔹 Train people to check what looks plausible. AI scribe errors are idiosyncratic rather than predictable. Automation bias ensures a note may look fine, but not that it is correct.
🔹 Start where the benefit is clearest. Short, high-volume consultations without secretarial support, such as physiotherapy and GP appointments, may gain the most.
🔹 Take staff concerns seriously. Some worry that savings will mean job cuts. Give people the chance to try the technology and give feedback.
🔹 Measure productivity as well as performance. A faster note doesn’t help if waiting times and exit blocks stop more patients being seen.

For civil servants and public sector leaders introducing AI into frontline services, this is a solid guide to rolling it out safely and getting the value from it.

Transform Gov is part of the Ireland eGovernment Awards, in partnership with Accenture.

#TransformGov #PublicSector #AI #HealthTech #DigitalHealth
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What happens when AI gives radiologists a second pair of eyes? Done well, it can help find disease earlier, ease the workload and free clinicians to spend more time with patients. But getting it into a hospital takes evidence, governance and a lot of people in the room. In this episode, we speak to Professor Nuala Healy, Chair of Radiology at RCSI and Consultant Radiologist at Beaumont Hospital, about getting AI tools into Irish hospitals, measuring whether they work and asking patients what they think.
The evidence is encouraging. A large Swedish trial of more than 100,000 women found a 29% increase in cancer detection and a 44% reduction in radiologists’ workload.

What you can take away and act on:
🔹 Start with the clinical question. Identify where the need is before you talk to vendors.
🔹 Bring every team into the room early. Clinical colleagues, the emergency department, procurement, IT, the imaging team and your data protection officer all have a part to play.
🔹 Measure outcomes from the start, and keep measuring. Track missed fractures, referrals and time in the emergency department, and be ready for an “awkward breakup” with an AI tool that isn’t working.
🔹 Keep a human in the loop. Nuala explains automation bias, why radiologists need to feel able to overrule the AI, and how to train junior radiologists to build their own judgement.
🔹 Ask patients, and tell them. Of about 3,500 people surveyed, 96% in the radiology study wanted to be told when AI is used in their care, and the EU AI Act now requires it.
🔹 Share the platform, not just the tool. Ireland’s national imaging system lets AI tools be plugged in centrally, rather than every hospital repeating the same governance process.

For civil servants and public sector leaders introducing AI into frontline services, this is a practical guide to getting it in safely, measuring it properly and keeping people in the loop.

Transform Gov is part of the Ireland eGovernment Awards, in partnership with Accenture.

#TransformGov #PublicSector #AI #Radiology #DigitalHealth
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Where does innovation in the public sector really come from? Rarely from technology first. In this episode Dr James O’Connell, Innovation Fellow with HSE Spark, talks to us about how frontline staff get support to spot problems, work with partners across the public sector and turn ideas into change.

Spark is the HSE’s frontline staff-led innovation programme, and Spark Fusion funds collaborations between the HSE and other public sector organisations, up to €95,000.

The response so far is strong: 228 people attended the recent Fusion workshop, and 772 consultants were involved in this year’s Innovation Fund for Consultants applications.

What you can take away and act on:
🔹 Start with the problem, not the solution. Examine the causes together as a group before you decide what to build.
🔹 Look beyond your own organisation. James describes two frontlines: the clinics and EDs, and the local authorities, schools and transport bodies that shape the conditions people live in.
🔹 Flatten the hierarchy. The best insights come from the frontline, so bring everyone to the table as equals.
🔹 Choose the right fund for your idea. Spark Seed supports early ideas up to €5,000, Spark Impact funds projects up to €90,000 and Spark Fusion up to €95,000, and there is a separate Innovation Fund for Consultants.
🔹 Make your case clearly when you apply. Describe the problem or opportunity, who it affects and who is on the team, and involve patients or the public at the problem-definition stage.
🔹 Remember it doesn’t have to be technology. Dementia training for the Gardaí, sun safety for lifeguards and a joint clinic all came from people working together.
🔹 Judge success beyond one project. Even when a pilot doesn’t scale, it can create an innovator for life.

Key dates: Spark Fusion applications close on 30 October. The Innovation Fund for Consultants opened on 5 October and closes on 25 March, with a pre-submission feedback stage until early January.

For civil servants and public sector leaders with a frontline idea, a cross-sector problem or a pilot that needs to scale, this is practical advice on where to start. Find out more about Spark at hse.ie/spark.

Transform Gov is part of the Ireland eGovernment Awards, in partnership with Accenture.

#TransformGov #PublicSector #Innovation #HSE #Healthcare
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Before AI can change healthcare, the record underneath it has to be right. In this episode, we speak with Helen Waters, Executive Vice President and COO of Meditech, about what Ireland needs to get right first as it moves towards a national electronic health record, and what 22 countries’ experience can teach us.

Meditech develops electronic health records. It has more than 30 years in healthcare IT, works in 22 countries and has been in Ireland for over 20 years.

What you can take away:
🔹 Start with the system of record, and decide the pace and the cost deliberately. Fast should mean agile, not reckless. Helen describes a rollout of 180 hospitals in under five years, made faster by standardising and allowing for regional preferences.
🔹 Standardise at the top and let regions adapt. Helen explains how HCA, which runs 180 US hospitals, sets national standards while allowing local variation.
🔹 Plan for affordability beyond day one. In the US, technology costs went up and never came down.
🔹 Insist on interoperability. The clinician making the next decision needs the data they need, whichever system holds it.
🔹 Put clinicians, finance and data teams at the table early. Helen gives an example of a maternity system where counting births proved difficult.
🔹 Use proven AI, such as ambient voice, and prove its value. Clinicians are wary of governments and vendors getting “drunk on the next technology”.

For civil servants and public sector leaders involved in health technology, this is practical advice on getting the foundations right.

Transform Gov is part of the Ireland eGovernment Awards, in partnership with Accenture.

#TransformGov #HealthTech #PublicSector #AI #DigitalHealth
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Every new policy asks people to do something differently, but training is often treated as a mere afterthough, taking place after rollout. So what if we flipped the process? What if we treated learning as an essential, so policy actually changes what happens on the ground?

In this episode, we speak with Gavin Woods, Managing Director of Aurion Learning, who has spent almost 26 years helping government departments, agencies and public bodies turn policy into practice through digital learning.

What you can take from this episode:
🔹 Bring learning into the room where the policy is written: The organisations that win awards for delivery plan training alongside the policy, not after it. One recent client saw 98% of its audience complete the compliance training required.
🔹 Check your own language, and ask your audience what they need: Teams working intensely on policy can become "a little bit obsessed with our own plans and our own language", using terms their audience doesn't understand.
🔹 Look beyond the tip of the iceberg: The people already engaged with you aren't your whole audience. Where you can't simply tell people to complete training, work out what's in it for them, and design for learning rather than just information sharing.
🔹 Ask who is accountable for the policy's success, not just who runs training: Heads of strategy, transformation and sector skills increasingly need to be part of the conversation.
🔹 Build a one-stop shop for AI upskilling: A learning portal with approved tools, internal guidance and colleague case studies helps turn "is this here to take my job?" into confidence.
🔹 Don't mistake speed for quality: "Fast and bad is still bad." Ask what people need to know, what's difficult and what they ask most often, then pick the right format, from e-learning to a printable job aid.

🎧 Transform Gov is part of the Ireland eGovernment Awards, brought to you in partnership with Accenture.

#TransformGov #PublicSector #Learning #PolicyImplementation #AI
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.