As the NHS shapes its next 10-Year Plan, there’s a growing consensus that real progress will come from rethinking the heart of the hospital — the operating room (OR).
Few people understand this better than Dr Nadine Hachach-Haram, an NHS surgeon and founder and CEO of Proximie, a healthtech platform.
Technology and the NHS 10-Year Plan
Dr Hachach-Haram believes health technology (healthtech) must be central to the NHS’s next 10-Year Plan.
She urges policymakers to engage not only with large multinationals but also with smaller, more agile players, who are often better equipped to deliver practical value in healthcare settings.
Currently, 30% of NHS leaders have little or no confidence in the reliability of manually inputted data
“Ideally, the NHS would consistently engage with the 10-20 health techs best-placed to make a positive impact on the organisation. This would spur effective adoption of innovative solutions countrywide – benefiting productivity, technological innovation, and patient care,” she says.
Dr Hachach-Haram has identified key areas where digitised operating rooms (ORs) can drive significant improvements in both patient care and hospital efficiency. These include:
- Accelerating medical innovation and best practice sharing.
- Increasing productivity by addressing workflow bottlenecks.
- Enabling real-time communication for training and complex surgeries.
- Improving data accuracy, thereby enhancing operational performance.
“Currently, 30% of NHS leaders have little or no confidence in the reliability of manually inputted data, making improving operational and surgical performance a significant challenge.
For Dr Hachach-Haram, the operating room is an obvious focal point for the NHS’s upcoming 10-Year Plan
“Ambient data collection processes will alleviate this issue – 70% of leaders expect it would be vastly more accurate than manual collection – enabling healthcare systems to identify tangible improvement opportunities, allowing them to treat a higher number of patients,” she adds.
For Dr Hachach-Haram, the operating room is an obvious focal point for the NHS’s upcoming 10-Year Plan.
“The upcoming NHS 10-Year Plan is a perfect opportunity to tackle persistent challenges affecting the service, ranging from the use of technology to how the next generation of doctors are trained. Operating rooms (ORs) deserve close attention in the Plan. They contribute 35-40% of a hospital’s costs, and surgical waiting lists materially impact patients’ lives and health,” she explains.
While waiting times are improving, many patients still face waits of more than 18 weeks for treatment.
By adopting digital tools, Dr Hachach-Haram argues, each OR could perform an additional three surgeries per week
Inefficiencies in surgical pathways play a significant role in this issue, with the NHS cancelling around 135,000 elective surgeries each year — 80% of which could be avoided.
The resulting delays are costly, both financially and in terms of patient well-being.
Dr Hachach-Haram believes there is a clear opportunity to tackle these challenges through smarter use of technology and improved processes.
“50% of OR staff are spending over an hour per day resolving scheduling conflicts and equipment or staffing issues – time which could easily be used for treating patients, if better processes and technology were implemented.”
Burnout is a significant problem in the NHS; nearly three-quarters of leaders say team members have quit in the last two years due to poor work-life balance
By adopting digital tools, Dr Hachach-Haram argues, each OR could perform an additional three surgeries per week. While this may seem like a small change, it could have a huge cumulative impact on waiting lists and patient outcomes.
The digital transformation of surgery also aligns closely with Health Secretary Wes Streeting’s ambition to move the NHS from an ‘analogue to digital’ model, Hachach-Haram points out.
Not only would digital tools enable faster, safer treatment, but they could also address the pervasive issue of workforce burnout, Dr Hachach-Haram argues.
“Burnout is a significant problem in the NHS; nearly three-quarters of leaders say team members have quit in the last two years due to poor work-life balance, with 80% of senior OR staff claiming their teams experience late finishes on a daily or weekly basis.”
Dr Hachach-Haram believes technology can relieve these pressures, optimise workflows, and ultimately improve outcomes for both staff and patients.
What is Proximie?
Proximie was born out of Dr Hachach-Haram’s personal experiences. Growing up in post-war Lebanon, she witnessed firsthand the consequences of limited surgical access.
Years later, her global health work in developing countries left her frustrated by inefficiencies and underwhelming impact.
“This spurred me to create Proximie and build a network of ORs interconnected by the world’s best surgeons, empowered by real-time diagnostics, data, and analysis, to create a greater impact.”
Proximie is Dr Hachach-Haram’s answer to global OR challenges.
Proximie is Dr Hachach-Haram’s answer to global OR challenges
“Proximie is a cloud-based, ambient AI solution enabling healthcare systems to digitise ORs, which yields a complete view of a full surgery, in real-time. This improves productivity, reduces elective backlogs, improves patient safety, and alleviates pressures felt by any workforce reductions.
“It is a device-agnostic, state-of-the-art software solution. Various medical devices can connect to the platform, giving observers a complete view of an OR, in real-time or post-surgery,” Dr Hachach-Haram explains.
By integrating data from various medical devices into a single platform, Proximie provides what Dr Hachach-Haram calls “a single source of truth” for the OR. Ensuring critical data is accessible, accurate, and actionable.
Proximie’s data-driven analysis has pinpointed several areas where OR workflows falter: from delays in material preparation and late arrivals of staff to inefficient cleaning protocols and disorganised breakdown procedures.
Proximie is a cloud-based, ambient AI solution enabling healthcare systems to digitise ORs
“One solution to improve processes and communication between surgeons and scrub teams is for automated prompt notifications to be shared across the surgical workflow; spurring action as needed. Proximie is looking to rollout this solution – further supporting productivity improvements across global healthcare systems,” Dr Hachach-Haram offers.
Dr Hachach-Haram believes automated prompt notifications within the surgical workflow could support real-time communication, spurring action and improving productivity throughout the process.
Proximie is already used in over 800 ORs across more than 50 countries, supporting tens of thousands of procedures.
In Kenya, Proximie partnered with Jhpiego and the country’s Health Ministry to improve obstetric and anaesthesia care through tech-enabled workforce development.
Proximie also helped a US healthcare provider increase its surgical capacity by 9,000 procedures a year — a 12% uplift — while generating $90 million in new revenue.
The challenges hindering digitisation of the NHS
Ensuring new technology reaches all corners of the NHS requires simplification of procurement processes, says Dr Hachach-Haram.
“Simplifying procurement processes to help healthtechs scale and make an impact across the entire NHS would add considerable value,” she says, highlighting the significant barriers that currently impede technology adoption.
“Across the organisation, procurement can be difficult and expensive to navigate; demanding significant attention and limiting technology rollouts across the UK.”
The complexity of these processes means that cutting-edge innovations often face delays before they can reach the teams that need them most.
The need for a cultural shift is equally important
Dr Hachach-Haram also points out that “frustratingly, many administrative actions require duplication across Trusts — an unnecessary layer of costs and delay to implementing innovative technologies.”
This duplication leads to inefficiencies that not only raise costs but also slow down the rollout of crucial tech that could improve patient care.
The need for a cultural shift is equally important. “Cultural change — by encouraging adoption of innovative technologies across the NHS — must be a priority. While day-to-day technology systems in many Trusts are in dire need of upgrades, it is vital that technology advances are not missed. This could cause further discrepancies in the standard of care for patients nationally.”
For Dr Hachach-Haram, these systemic changes are essential to ensuring the NHS can deliver the high-quality, efficient care patients need, and that new technologies can have the widespread impact they deserve.
Practical next steps for NHS Trusts
So, how should NHS Trusts start modernising their ORs?
“Adopt a platform approach,” advises Dr Hachach-Haram.
Too often, technology in operating theatres is siloed and equipment-focused. Shifting to integrated, system-wide solutions that offer full visibility from pre-op to post-op would deliver immediate operational and financial gains, according to Dr. Hachach-Haram.
Overall, Dr Hachach-Haram’s advice to those shaping the NHS’s future strategy is: “Work closely with dynamic UK healthtechs to catalyse tangible, positive change for the NHS.
“Many companies well-placed to make an impact. Give them the tools and leeway to bring about change, which will benefit Trust leaders, medical practitioners, and most of all, patients.”