NHS systems are outdated - and dangerous to our health
I have spent my career trying to bridge the gap between medicine and innovation, only to watch in frustration as outdated legacy technologies continue to sabotage patient care.
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Jess’s Rule, announced by the Government yesterday and born from the heartbreaking loss of Jessica Brady in the UK, is a crucial safeguard. It mandates escalation when patients repeatedly seek help for the same issue. It will undoubtedly save lives and honour her memory by forcing clinicians to pause and reassess.
Yet, as vital as it is, Jess’s Rule exposes a deeper crisis. Our healthcare systems are fundamentally blind, fragmented by archaic silos that treat patients as isolated incidents rather than evolving stories.
Jessica’s tragedy isn’t unique to the UK. From overburdened GPs to overwhelmed ERs in the US, rural clinics in India, and under-resourced hospitals in Africa, patients slip through cracks because records don’t talk to each other. Doctors aren’t the villains; they’re victims of tools that keep them in the dark.
It’s wrong that it takes a tragic loss to prompt new rules or policies that save lives. We need intelligent infrastructure that anticipates harm before it strikes.
Imagine AI-driven platforms that analyse a patient’s full journey in real time, just as algorithms already predict your next Netflix show or optimise traffic in smart cities. After Jessica’s second or third contact, such a system could have flagged inconsistencies. Not to replace judgment, but to augment it with a whisper: “This doesn’t add up, please look again.”
Legacy tech is inefficient and, in the modern era of care, frankly dangerous. It clings to outdated databases and incompatible formats, wasting billions while human life hangs in the balance.
Jess’s Rule is a testament to the tireless campaigning of Jess’s parents and has brought attention to this blind spot in our healthcare system. But the future of healthcare must be proactive, not reactive, and true transformation demands dismantling relics and building resilient, intelligent networks.
The time for a health tech renaissance is now.
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Dr Devan Moodley is the CEO of Health Connect Global Ltd. A South African-trained physician now residing in the UK, he earned his MBChB before pursuing further studies at Harvard and Oxford.
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