Clinical entrepreneurship: a driver for digital transformation in surgery

Clinical entrepreneurship describes the act of a healthcare professional starting a business with the aim of making a profit. They use their experience to generate sustainable and scalable solutions to healthcare problems. Workforce development programmes, like the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme (NHS CEP), allow innovators to learn the critical business and financial skills required to progress their ideas. Digital transformation is a key area for Clinical Entrepreneurs. Utilizing novel digital technologies, robotics and artificial intelligence, new innovations are set to improve patient outcomes, lower costs, and increase surgical efficiency. This article outlines some of the most exciting areas of digital transformation in surgery. There are numerous challenges facing the adoption of digital innovation in surgery, which include integration with electronic patient record (EPR) systems, legacy infrastructure, variable regulatory, information governance and procurement processes and sometimes conflicting cultural opinions of key decision makers. Clinical entrepreneurship offers a new way to help address these barriers and deliver digital transformation in surgery.