»Ê¼Ò»ªÈË

​â¶Ä‹â¶Ä‹â¶Ä‹â¶Ä‹â¶Ä‹Chief Clinical Information Officer at the Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust, Dr Dilshan Arawwawala, has collaborated with UCL AI researchers to develop HealthTech startup Shift Partner.

​â¶Ä‹â¶Ä‹â¶Ä‹â¶Ä‹â¶Ä‹Chief Clinical Information Officer at the Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust, Dr Dilshan Arawwawala, has collaborated with UCL AI researchers to develop exciting HealthTech startup Shift Partner, a platform poised to solve the NHS staffing crisis by enabling health organisations to deliver the goals of the NHS Long term Workforce Plan:Ìý a workforce that is understood, works and trains differently; a growing and retained workforce.

As the fifth biggest employer in the world, the NHS faces a monumental challenge in managing its workforce. Solving the NHS staffing crisis requires more than just recruitment or funding; it demands a rethinking of how staff are trained, deployed, and retained to foster a thriving, learning culture and achieve optimal staffing effectiveness and efficiency. Recognising this need, Dr Dilshan Arawwawala, Chief Clinical Information Officer at the Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust, founded Health Tech venture Shift Partner.

Through collaboration with UCL researchers, the Shift Partner team developed an innovative staffing app and workforce solution. Their mission is to revolutionise workforce management for the NHS, by harnessing behavioural and data science, combined with artificial intelligence, to promote optimal staff deployment, enhance staff development, and significantly improve retention rates. Through the delivery of these goals, organisations will also reduce their reliance on expensive bank and agency staff.

Adressing the NHS Staffing Crisis

Despite a 25% increase in its workforce since 2018, resulting in an annual expenditure of £85 billion on staff, the NHS faces an unprecedented staffing crisis. In addition to this expenditure, the public health service spends an extra £11 billion annually towards temporary staff to fill rota gaps. A critical challenge is healthcare providers' limited understanding of their workforce's skills, capabilities, and role-specific requirements, compounded by a lack of insight into staff preferences. This deficiency leads to difficulties in identifying the optimal combination of skills for required tasks, particularly on short notice, resulting in suboptimal deployment strategies.

Dr Arawwawala’s own research pointed towards a lack of workforce business intelligence as a key contributor to the high annual staff turnover rate of 9% and an overreliance on temporary staffing. Employees within the same role may lack the capabilities for certain shifts, and many are reluctant to work outside their familiar departments.

Projections indicate a worsening shortage of 250,000 healthcare staff by 2029 in the UK alone, underscoring the urgent need for effective workforce management solutions.

ÌýThe Shift Partner Platform

Shift Partner employs data-driven research and cutting-edge technology to match staff effectively to shifts based on their capabilities, preferences, and career aspirations, surpassing traditional department and role limitations. By responsibly integrating AI, organizations can optimize workforce allocation, ensuring staff are placed where they can maximize their impact. This approach not only improves operational efficiency but also provides staff with opportunities aligned with their personal and professional growth, thereby enhancing job satisfaction and retention.

How It Works

Staff members can easily register and, through providing information about their capabilities and preferences, access opportunities through the Shift Partner mobile app on Apple or Android devices. Concurrently, staffing leads utilize a web app featuring a streamlined dashboard displaying available shifts and priority needs. Each shift is detailed with critical information, including required capabilities and staff availability, with AI-driven recommendations further simplifying the selection process and enabling an optimal deployment of staff to the required work.

Technical Journey with the CDI

During their participation in the Impact Accelerator programme, Shift Partner’s Professor Honghan Wu (UCL Institute of Health Informatics), advanced their product by translating his AI research into practical enhancements ready for implementation into their platform. With support from the CDI, the startup integrated AI research findings, insights from NHS staff, and software engineering expertise, enabling them to scale the product. These key technical advancements included:

• Enhanced Capabilities Ontology Development: Shift Partner created AI models to generate detailed capability graphs for NHS roles using data from authoritative sources. Continuous feedback loops with healthcare professionals ensured ongoing improvement in ontology accuracy.
• Streamlined Architectural Enhancements: Automation of the pipeline for translating research insights into practical solutions was achieved using AWS CloudFormation. This facilitated rapid provisioning and management of environments, ensuring smooth integration of AI-driven ontologies into NHS operations.
• Robust ML Model Deployment: Shift Partner successfully deployed machine learning models through AWS SageMaker endpoints, enhancing scalability and performance for impactful NHS workforce management solutions.
• Fortified Security Measures: Implementation of Identity Centre centralized account management and bolstered data security, ensuring compliance with healthcare regulations and safeguarding sensitive information across all AI-powered solutions.

Impact and Future Outlook

Shift Partner has achieved remarkable progress through its participation in the CDI Impact Accelerator and collaboration with the Institute of Health Informatics at »Ê¼Ò»ªÈË to integrate their cutting-edge AI research into practical enhancements for their platform. The technical innovations realized through this programme have positioned Shift Partner at the forefront of Health Tech solutions for the NHS, sparking significant interest from multiple NHS Trusts eager to integrate its platform.

Crucially, Shift Partner's solution aligns seamlessly with the NHS's long-term workforce plan for 2023, which emphasizes working and training differently, retaining the workforce, and fostering growth, thereby supporting the NHS in achieving its strategic workforce objectives. As Shift Partner continues to refine and expand its solution, these pioneering NHS Trusts stand to benefit from improved operational workflows, enhanced staff retention, and ultimately, elevated patient care outcomes across their facilities.

Founder, Dr Dilshan Arawwawala, summarises his team's experience with the CDI:

"An incredible 12-week journey! Right from the needs assessment sessions, the CDI team helped to focus the team on what we needed to achieve, its uniqueness in the marketplace, and the positive societal impact the created solution would have on healthcare workforce crisis.Ìý

As part of the ‘Well Architected’ AWS review, areas for enhancement were identified to improve security , ML industrialisation and utilise Claude v3. These have also been delivered in 12-weeks and improve the robustness, scalability, and user experience. We faced several challenges along the way. Under the knowledgeable and supportive guidance of ARC and AWS subject matter experts (Bruno, Igor, Paul and many others!), we were able to overcome these and achieve our goals. Also, regular business planning sessions with Professor Magda Hercheui have helped ShiftPartner’s business leads better understand the healthcare management solution market, product differentiation, strategic and commercial opportunities. The output will be a robust business plan and pitch deck to support future investment bids.Ìý

A big thank you to all the CDI team. We have achieved in 12 weeks what we believed would take 6-12 months. The future is looking bright!"