Webinar: Scaling Excellence Through Digital Pathway Standardisation

Why It Matters

Standardising digital care pathways reduces variation, boosts safety, and frees capacity—critical for tackling NHS backlogs and enabling rapid adoption of AI‑driven innovations.

Key Takeaways

• Digital pathways can reduce clinical variation and improve patient flow.
• Standardized automation frees capacity to address elective backlog.
• Consistent care pathways enhance safety and prevent patients falling through.
• National programs like GIRFT demonstrate measurable outcome improvements.
• Embedding AI models into digital frameworks accelerates future service innovation.

Summary

The webinar, hosted by Pete Hansel, CEO of Isa, brought together clinicians Professor Jeppi Garcia and Dr. Flora McCURLIN to discuss how digital pathway standardisation can transform NHS service delivery. They framed the conversation around the pressing pressures on the health system—rising demand, elective backlogs, and clinician burnout—and positioned data‑driven, automated pathways as a lever to reclaim clinical time and streamline patient journeys from primary care to self‑management.

Key insights highlighted the chaos caused by unwarranted variation: differing test orders, inconsistent referral practices, and opaque capacity modelling. By mapping each step and embedding automation, hospitals can create repeatable, evidence‑based routes that free clinicians to focus on complex cases. Audience polling underscored the desire to use reclaimed time for expanding services and reducing bottlenecks.

Both panelists offered concrete examples. Jeppi likened the current system to supermarket checkout lines, where one lane lags behind the rest, while Flora cited the GIRFT‑driven Early Inflammatory Arthritis pathway, which set time‑bound milestones and lifted the proportion of patients starting treatment within six weeks across England. She also described the "franchise" analogy—standardised digital pathways act like a consistent recipe, ensuring every patient receives the same clinically approved care.

The implications are far‑reaching. Standardised, digitally enabled pathways promise to cut variation, improve safety, and shrink elective backlogs, while providing a scalable framework for future AI and computer‑vision tools. As the NHS adopts national programmes and shares best practices, the groundwork is laid for a more efficient, patient‑centred health system nationwide.

Original Description

This Digital Health webinar is in association with Isla.

Managing record backlogs and rising demand while clinical teams face burnout is a significant challenge. Join our webinar to discover how digital pathways act as a catalyst for your Trust.

Hear from our clinical panel on how they reclaimed 135+ hours and increased clinic capacity by 3.8x using the Isla platform. We’ll explore how standardising pathways helps you safely remove thousands from waiting lists and transition to a remote-first model.

Speakers:

Dr Flora McErlane

Co-clinical Lead, Paediatric Rheumatology GIRFT programme, NHS England; and Consultant Paediatric Rheumatologist, Great North Children’s Hospital, Newcastle Hospitals Foundation Trust

Prof. Giuseppe Garcea

Consultant HPB Surgeon, Deputy Medical Director for Planned Care at University Hospitals of Leicester

Pete Hansell

CEO and Co-founder, Isla Health