Overcoming public service challenges
Accenture Centre for Innovation Takes New Approach to Tackling Health and Public Service Challenges through Artificial Intelligence, Design and Analytics.
Ireland was chosen as the preferred location for Accenture’s €25 million Centre for Innovation which is a multidisciplinary research and incubation hub, developing solutions to some of society’s most complex issues, including those impacting health and public service. Located in the heart of Dublin’s Docklands, the Centre for Innovation helps Accenture’s clients develop solutions through a new approach to innovation using design-led experimentation and co-creation, underpinned by new technologies such as artificial Intelligence (AI), advanced analytics and cyber security.
Julie Spillane, Centre for Innovation Director says, “Digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, virtual and augmented reality have opened up new avenues to tackle some of the major challenges facing government and the public sector. Our Centre for Innovation is bringing together experts in areas like health, policing and customs alongside designers, artificial intelligence and advanced analytics specialists to re-imagine the future and design solutions to these challenges.”
“The combination of experts from different fields working side-by-side in a flexible, open and collaborative workspace means that we are operating in a new way to develop proof of concepts and prototypes at speed and scale, a necessity in a rapidly evolving digital world,” she notes.
The Centre for Innovation has a number of teams exclusively focused on tackling issues facing the public sector.
MEET THE EXPERTS
Dadong Wan, Artificial Intelligence Tech Labs Lead
“Artificial intelligence, as we see it, is a collection of technologies that enable machines to sense, comprehend and act—and learn, either on their own or with some assistance from humans. The technical factors underpinning it are not new but what is new is the increasing availability of data and our ability to analyse and process it at speed with almost unlimited computational power over the cloud. The combination opens up endless new opportunities,” says Dadong Wan, Accenture Labs Fellow, and lead for the Accenture Lab in the Centre for Innovation which is devoted to artificial intelligence (AI). Dadong’s team is exploring how emerging AI technologies might transform businesses across many industries, including the public sector.
The Accenture Lab’s team is working with industry experts in the Centre for Innovation to develop AI solutions such as Intelligent Risk Management, which applies machine learning and reasoning to automatically infer and explain risk levels of Accenture client projects and recommend appropriate actions to mitigate such risks. The other example is an intelligent finance tool that allows organisations to uncover and explain abnormalities in expenses like travel, by taking into account personal factors or external events and recommending the right actions to optimise future expenses. In addition, Dadong’s team is also exploring how AI can be used to uncover future skills gaps and help organisations to come up with optimal strategies to train, hire or contract in people to effectively address such gaps.
“Can governments use technology to put the citizens at the centre of its government experience? What does this mean for interacting with a government on its portal? Can governments supply 24/7 web chat support using AI at peak tax submission points? What does it mean for a policy maker now that there is enough data to understand the statistics and trends that go with a particular social problem?” he asks. “These are the questions that we are asking at the Centre for Innovation and we are exploring how AI can help address many of the challenges facing government and the public sector today.”
Aoife Beggan, Revenue Industry Team
Aoife Beggan, a tax industry specialist, is leading a multidisciplinary team exploring how revenue organisations can ensure that data is flowing to the right part of the organisation at the right time, to meet the challenges posed in a digital era.
Aoife explains, “As tax agencies grapple with the shift from paper and telephone to a digital world, data’s importance is growing, and with that comes the need to manage it correctly. With the right information at the right time, revenue organisations can accomplish a range of goals, from delivering a rapid response to today’s citizen who expects Amazon-quality digital customer service, to performing analytics and data mining that can identify non-payers of taxes.”
The Accenture team explored how best to map the process flow of data through a tax agency in order to arrive at a data management architecture. The team also called on data analytics experts from the Dublin based Accenture Analytics Innovation Centre and US based data management specialists.
The team looked at all activities of a tax agency, from customer service to tax collection and IT operations. They wanted to identify areas that were common to all agencies, no matter where in the world. The team also looked at other industries for inspiration, including banking and insurance – in particular, the latter’s experience in data analysis for fraud detection proved useful.
Aoife says, “Tax agencies often have large volumes and varieties of data to analyse for risk of fraud, or to make available to provide the right customer service such as keeping citizens informed about the status of their refund. Profiling, analytics and data mining feed into management decision making, allowing agencies to determine the right manpower effort for case working, so that its experts are best deployed on complex tasks that require their skills, while other procedural work could be automated.”
The outcome was a blueprint describing how revenue agencies should best manage their data. This blueprint also works as a model that tax agencies can use to determine their technology investment plans.
Dr. Christina Gunther, Health Innovation Lead
Christina Gunther MD, a doctor of neurology, is part of the Health and Life Sciences team and is responsible for the Future of Health Innovation Experiences at the Centre for Innovation.
The Health and Life Sciences team, made up of experts in medicine, pharmacy, business and maths, is focussed on the current trends in the healthcare sector as it becomes increasingly important to bridge the gap between the healthcare and life sciences sectors.
Christina points out, “Both sectors have their clear focus on the patients, their health and well-being but the key touchpoints are different ones, despite the same problems.”
The various projects and engagements within the team working at the Centre for Innovation range from automation in both Health and Life Sciences, to digitalisation of clinical trials and bespoke Future of Health Innovation Experiences encapsulating emerging trends in healthcare.
The team at the Centre for Innovation is also exploring using analytics and data insights for healthcare professionals to make more informed decisions. Christina explains, “Using patient data could help develop new models to improve healthcare. For example, platforms built on patient data can be used by healthcare professionals to make data driven decisions leading to the improvement of quality of care for patients while reducing the likelihood of re-admittance to hospitals. This can deliver cost savings while freeing up medical professionals to treat more patients.”
The Centre was also part of the recently launched Accenture HealthTech Innovation Challenge, which aims to bring together innovative, leading-edge start-ups with prominent life sciences and health companies.
Dominique Verdejo, Public Safety Analytics Lead
Dominique Verdejo has over thirty years IT industry expertise, with a specialism in the public safety industry. Dominique leads the Public Safety Analytics team at the Centre for Innovation.
The ever increasing complexity of crime and its growing cross-border dimension require the applications of new emerging technologies to provide police and public safety agencies with the intelligence and insights they need to successfully fight crime and terrorism.
The Dublin team is specifically focusing efforts on the opportunities that new emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning offer to police forces, augmenting the role of police officers with next-generation technologies to enhance police operations and investigations.
“Artificial intelligence, and more specifically machine learning, are already having a huge impact on the IT landscape, particularly across public safety related industries,” explains Dominique. “Here in Dublin we are exploring new applications for machine learning and video analytics technologies across public safety, offering clients new levels of analytic insights and intelligence gathering.
“We are moving to a new age of predictive policing where officers will work alongside machines to gather and analyse data to support police investigations and operations, ultimately helping to prevent and reduce crime and enhance security.”
“Computer learning capabilities are already enabling new intelligence sources and offering clients previously unavailable sources for data analysis. Data and video analytics technologies also provide huge opportunities for public safety clients. The availability of next-generation camera technologies (capable of real-time monitoring) combined with advanced analytic capabilities offer public safety agencies new ways to police and secure urban spaces and public events. In the future we will also likely see the use of artificial intelligence agents, providing some levels of operator assistance to help manage citizen service requests,” he adds.
Dominique explains how the team works with clients to achieve the desired outcomes. “Here at Accenture we have adopted a mixed approach of design thinking and agile software development techniques that enable our customers to engage closely with us across early-stage service design planning and prototype creation phases. This approach has proven outstandingly efficient in helping us grasp our clients’ operational challenges early-on, and ultimately enabling us to deliver solutions quickly that can in time be rolled-out across their organisation”.
Dan Sheils, Managing Director of Accenture Ireland’s Health and Public Service Practice
Dan Sheils, Managing Director for Accenture Ireland’s Health and Public Service Practice explains, “Public sector bodies are not untouched by the digital revolution and, just like commercial businesses, are finding their operating models disrupted as they strive to offer joined up services to citizens. Here in Dublin’s Centre for Innovation we are exploring what that change means.”
“From revenue services to health”, Sheils adds, “our experts in Dublin’s Silicon Docks are reimagining how the citizen can be placed at the centre of the government experience. We are also taking analytics to new levels to help fight crime and terrorism in all their forms. The industrialisation of digital technologies means that the opportunity to engage with and deliver services to citizens in the way that they want has never been more accessible to the public sector.”
Dan Sheils leads Accenture’s Health and Public Service business in Ireland.
Tel: +353 (0) 1 646 2339
Email: daniel.sheils@accenture.com
