Developing an AI-Powered Digital Consent Pilot for Shropshire NHS Trust

From paper heavy, manual consent vaccination processes, to
fully automated redesigned workflows and 2000+ hours of administrative staff time released.

Overview

Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust needed to digitise the paper-based parental consent process used in school-age vaccinations. The objectives were to alleviate the heavy admin workload the School Age Immunisation Service (SAIS) was burdened with, improve clinical safety, enable seamless integration with the Rio EPR and provide an effective reporting functionality at any point in time.

The EBO Solution was piloted to provide an efficient safe and easy-to-use digital tool for e-Consent for school children’s vaccinations prior to the sessions.

This ‘first of type’ project uses Natural Language Processing to converse naturally with service users and integrate bi-directionally with the Rio EPR. Data collected during conversations are used to automate back-office processes.

Co-designed with frontline teams, it has generated a 97% feedback score and automated 7600 consents to date, freeing up staff time and broadening digital.

This marks the start of a collaborative journey to embed AI-driven automation into the Trust’s system. Patient validation and a patient portal are next.

Download the case study here to find out the solution’s performance results, how it works, its benefits, staff and patient feedback and the next steps for the Trust.

Summary of outcomes

satisfaction score

0 %

consents collected to date

hours of admin staff time released to date

Discover how Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust transformed its vaccination consent process using AI.

Trusted by leading healthcare organisations

Here are a few words from our clients on their experience with our solution.

[EBO] more than rose to the challenge. It felt like a true development partnership with staff from both EBO and BCU forming a cohesive team

Danielle Edwards

If a solution like EBO is implemented across the NHS, it can revolutionise access to maternity care for the majority of service users. The point is to release capacity in Health systems by using innovation and technology that supports that.

Charlotte Clayton

The experience of working with EBO on our Virtual Assistant has been very positive. EBO and Servelec listened to our feedback and helped design AI solutions that benefit our patients by providing an alternative way they interact with the trust.

James Mariott

I think where we really found the stress is on the admin. A lot of our service users are calling us, which means that our lines are continuously busy and admins miss some of the calls, as they are on the phone with another service user at the time. It means that people are trying to get in contact till the late evening when the services are closed. It really opened up our eyes to see that there are other ways our clients can communicate with us and there are other ways that we can communicate with the clients. It actually works for them.

Shona Richards

EBO is a trusted partner of Microsoft, because a lot of what we see with thousands of customers that we work around the world is very much aligned with EBO’s mission and vision. They empower caregivers; they empower administrative staff, and they empower patients to have better access to information. 84% of Healthcare Executives believe that AI will revolutionise the way we obtain information.

Ruthy Kaidar

We have a growing backlog and we have patients whose conditions are just getting worse as their appointments are delayed. We have people in the community who cannot even get their first appointment, they cannot get diagnosed and they cannot receive early treatment. Covid has accelerated our adoption of virtual appointments and remote patient monitoring, so there is some efficiency gained there.

Jenny Chong

It is indeed a pleasure to work hand-in-hand with EBO in developing our AI profile and competence. Apart from providing excellent technical expertise, EBO has consistently supported, trained, and maintained a close relationship with all of our team whilst overseeing the development, deployment, and successful marketing of our AI platform. Such support is unique and provides us with the confidence and motivation to further develop this exciting Artificial Intelligence revolution together with EBO, and be able to provide a holistic and efficient experience to our clients.

Jean Claude Muscat

Our booking officers absolutely love our Virtual Assistant Alex, since it does the legwork and they can focus on the patient. Over the last six months, Alex has helped save 24 hours of staff time every week. Our callers come from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, so we worked with our communication to make sure Alex understands all our patients and the different ways they communicate.

Kim Hale

“Working with EBO is like ‘a breath of fresh air’. They have a deep-seated ‘can-do’ ethos to delivering successful solutions and our collaboration functions as a true partnership. The EBO Virtual Assistant is a new technology for us with great potential as it integrates directly with our Electronic Patient Record. We initiated a pilot with EBO on e-Consent and are already lined up for rolling out pre-assessment and appointment modules.¨