‘The pandemic has accelerated the rate of change within healthcare, much of it for the better’ said Paul Turley, Director of ServisyoNow
What is your name and what position do you hold?
Paul Turley, Director ServiceNow
What are your daily responsibilities?
I am responsible for the ServiceNow business in Ireland. ServiceNow solutions optimize healthcare and life sciences workflows to free up time for patient care and innovation. My day-to-day responsibilities range from managing our sales team and liaising with the wider ServiceNow team on marketing and PR activities, to scaling the business in Ireland.
A key part of my role is to work directly with our customers and partners to ensure they get maximum value from their investment in ServiceNow technology. We help them transform their organizations to reduce costs and drive revenue — organically or through mergers and acquisitions — while also boosting customer and employee satisfaction. We are working closely with the public sector to align the Connected Government 2030 strategy. Through this initiative, we aim to enable data and services so that Ireland’s public services can interoperate within and across organizations and third parties party.
What is your professional background?
My background is in engineering — I completed my degree at University College Dublin — and its core principles have stayed with me. The logical thinking and problem-solving skills required for engineering remain critical aspects of any role, especially business leaders.
That is why – when I realized that engineering was not my career-calling – I considered myself lucky to have been chosen to join the Enterprise Ireland Graduate Program (EI). At the time, Ireland’s engineering and software exports were beginning to increase dramatically. So instead of the normal 100% use of marketing graduates, EI started to incorporate more technically minded graduates to add more value to Irish exporters. Throughout the program, I was based in Copenhagen and had the pleasure of working with innovative Irish tech and software companies as they established routes to market across Scandinavia. I was thrown in at the deep end but had an amazing experience. Without a doubt, my training is second to none. There, I ran sales in both Ireland and Scandinavia. Next, I managed software businesses in Ireland and the UK, then joined ServiceNow a year ago.
What do you think has been the long-term impact of the pandemic on health care delivery?
The pandemic has accelerated the rate of change within healthcare, much of it for the better. The boundaries of care have expanded past surgeries and hospitals and into the virtual realm where patients can get the care they need without leaving their homes. As a result of that change, we see a greater need for interoperability and data exchange so that healthcare providers can offer the same level of care faster than ever before — which means they can no longer work in silos and must be able to share resources at any point. This will lead to better patient experiences as practitioners can easily share the right information with the right people, immediately.
What are the latest and most interesting digital health solutions?
Rather than a technological solution, we see a stronger focus on the patient experience. For too long, a patient’s own data has been difficult — if not impossible — for the patient to access because it’s stored in so many siled systems, or even in some cases, on paper anyway. This has resulted in a frustrating, and often, stressful experience for patients and their loved ones looking for answers.
But the adoption of AI in mainstream healthcare delivery holds a lot of promise for how healthcare is delivered to – and subsequently experienced by – patients. For sure, it will change care delivery, disease monitoring and medical research in the next decade.
Granted, we’re still in the early days but the feedback from early adopters has been great. We’re seeing innovative AI solutions gain regulatory approvals across healthcare — from at-risk patient identification to supporting clinicians in diagnosing patient conditions.
How will wearable health technology change what we understand about medicine and what key indicators of health are?
Wearable technology opens up countless opportunities for greater communication between health practitioners and their patients — in many ways. First, you have consumer wearable technologies, such as activity and heart rate monitors, that are getting better at collecting data and providing accurate information to the user. Although these products are not medical grade, they can help alert the individual to potential medical conditions, allowing them to seek help early. This can help diagnose conditions earlier for those who pay attention to their health. As I said earlier, there are so many opportunities in disease monitoring to ‘crowd source’ data collection.
Medical-grade wearables also play a big role in improving the patient experience, especially since they can avoid inpatient admissions just to get a diagnosis. We’ve seen some incredible innovations within medical teams, such as cardiology and neurology using wearables to monitor patient health.
What will be the top trends in healthcare in the coming years and how will patients and providers need to adapt?
There will be a greater need for a stronger connection and collaboration between practitioners in delivering care to their patients. Patients want to know more about their health and be more active in their care. But this can only happen when we eliminate traditional working methods and break down the silos between health care providers. Only then can ownership of care be shared between providers and their patients.
What are the main challenges in the digital transformation of health services?
Most of the key challenges lie in security, privacy, and transparency — all of which are necessary to build trust. These are especially important when sharing patient information. But with the right technology, sharing patient information will become easier and more secure, allowing providers to have a more holistic overview of how their patient information is being used, how long it’s being used, and who sees it.
ServiceNow is a Silver Sponsor of The Business Post’s 2022 Smart Health Summit. See www.smarthealthsummit.ie for full details and booking.