Francine de Stoppelaar is a former chief pharmacist and co-founder of Project Asclepius – an excellence platform driving digital transformation and automation of medication management processes – as well as an honorary associate professor at the University of Leicester and an associate at Deloitte for digital transformation of hospital services and medicines optimisation. She speaks to Saša Janković about her trailblazing work in this area and where she sees the biggest potential.
With a background in clinical pharmacology and over 25 years’ experience across the NHS, private healthcare and academia, Francine de Stoppelaar’s career exemplifies the intersection of clinical expertise, innovation and strategic leadership.
As the co-founder of Project Asclepius and former chief pharmacist at Cleveland Clinic London, she has become a leading voice in the digitalisation of hospital processes – particularly in the realm of pharmacy and medication management – and has laid the groundwork for a future where technology and healthcare professionals work in partnership to deliver safer, more efficient patient care.
A vision for digitalisation of healthcare
A long-time champion of the broader potential for multidisciplinary collaboration and the use of digital tools to address unmet patient needs, Francine’s passion for digital transformation in healthcare was ignited during her time at Cleveland Clinic London, which she joined in 2018.
As well as being chief pharmacist, she led the operational activation of the hospital prior to its 2022 opening, in a role that encompassed everything from building, procurement and hiring teams to the integration of equipment and new systems – all of which she spearheaded alongside the added challenges of Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, her primary focus remained on pharmacy, where she oversaw the development and implementation of a fully digitalised, closed-loop medicines management system that leveraged digital and automated solutions to enhance patient safety, workforce efficiency and sustainability.
The first of its kind in the UK, this groundbreaking digital pharmacy system included automation at every stage – from prescription verification to bedside administration – allowing for real-time monitoring of medications and dramatically reducing the risk of errors.
‘In fact, after two years the hospital reported only two incorrect administration errors in over one million medication administrations, both of which had no damaging effect to the patient and were easily corrected,’ Francine recalls.
Nonetheless, since most medicines management processes in hospitals across Europe are still based on manual operations to some extent, Francine admits projects like these are ambitious and uncommon.
‘State of the art technologies and innovative solutions are readily available, but their adoption is still limited, partly due to highly fragmented practices and workflows, but also because they are complex and costly,’ she says. ‘That’s why many hospitals in the UK and Europe still rely on outdated analogue systems, but these can lead to inefficiencies and medication errors, which is why it is essential that we bridge the gap between what’s technologically possible and what’s being implemented on the ground.’
Understanding Project Asclepius
This vision has been foundational to Francine’s work with Project Asclepius – an initiative she cofounded with Patrick van Oirschot and Patrick Koch after leaving Cleveland Clinic London at the start of 2024.
‘While some European countries are further ahead than others in managing medication effectively in a hospital setting, there are no consistent cross-European guidelines or effective ways to share best practice,’ says Francine.
‘The aim of Project Asclepius is to contribute to a faster and safe adoption of digital and automated medication management systems in hospitals across Europe, initially by focusing on best medication management practices enabling personalised therapies based on unit doses, with other areas of medication management to follow in future.’
The key to its success, according to Francine, lies in the integration of technology and human expertise. ‘Digitalisation doesn’t remove the human factor,’ she explains. ‘Rather, it enhances our ability to work smarter, not harder, by reducing repetitive tasks and allowing healthcare professionals to focus on patient care.’
Digitalisation and tackling unmet patient need
One of Francine’s driving motivations has always been improving patient safety.
‘As the healthcare landscape becomes increasingly complex, with workforce shortages and rising costs, the need for more efficient and safe systems becomes critical,’ she says. ‘For example, medication errors in the UK alone are responsible for the loss of approximately 1,700 lives each year.’
For Francine, addressing this through the automation and digitalisation of hospital processes is an ethical imperative. ‘By integrating technologies such as automated dispensing cabinets and real-time scanning at the bedside, we have helped to create systems where every step of the medication process is tracked and checked digitally,’ she says. ‘This approach minimises the possibility of errors, whether from a lack of human oversight or system inefficiencies, because if a medication hasn’t been verified and dispensed by a pharmacist, it simply can’t be administered.’
Through Project Asclepius, she advocates for the wider adoption of such ‘closed-loop’ systems, which not only improve patient outcomes but also have significant impacts on workforce efficiency. For instance, nurses and pharmacists can spend less time on manual tasks and more time focusing on direct patient care. As Francine points out, ‘automation doesn’t eliminate jobs but rather redeploys skilled workers to areas where they are most needed, thereby improving both patient experience and operational flow’.
Overcoming barriers to multidisciplinary working
Another recurrent theme in Francine’s work is the importance of collaboration. ‘Effective healthcare cannot be siloed, and this is especially true when it comes to pharmacy,’ she says, adding that: ‘Pharmacy is the red thread running through a hospital, so that while pharmacy teams handle ‘back office’ tasks such as procurement, logistics and stock management, their work always directly impacts clinical care.’
The challenge, however, is that many hospitals operate in a disjointed way, with different departments using incompatible systems. ‘In my consultancy work with Deloitte I’ve seen numerous inefficiencies resulting from this lack of interoperability, including duplicative processes and wasted staff hours,’ she says.
Her solution is to ensure that all digital systems within a hospital – whether for stock management, prescribing, patient records or anything else – are able to connect and ‘talk’ to each other.
However, she stresses that this requires buy-in not just from pharmacy leaders but from the entire multidisciplinary team. ‘Physicians, nurses, IT specialists and hospital managers must all be aligned in their approach to digital transformation and leaders need to bring everyone on board,’ she insists. ‘Without the support of senior management and the wider clinical team, even the best digital tools won’t succeed.’
A future built on standardisation and interoperability
Looking ahead, Francine believes that standardisation across hospitals and pharmacies will be key to addressing both workforce and patient safety challenges.
Through Project Asclepius, she is pushing for pan-European standards that would allow hospitals to adopt best practices for digitalisation more easily, which she says ‘includes everything from standardised unit doses and barcoding systems to harmonised procurement processes’.
But she is also realistic about the challenges. A survey by the European Association of Hospital Pharmacists concluded that most hospitals still don’t have plans to implement automation systems, and Francine acknowledges that ‘this is a long game, with huge complexities, particularly in terms of funding and policy’.
But, she says, ‘the potential benefits – fewer errors, better patient outcomes, and a more efficient healthcare workforce – are enormous.’
Ultimately, Francine’s approach to digitalisation within a hospital setting is both visionary and pragmatic. While she is passionate about the potential of technology to transform healthcare, she is also deeply aware of the human factors involved. At the heart of her work is a commitment to ensuring that digital systems serve not just patients, but also the healthcare professionals who care for them.
