Industry round-up

Digital Health News rounds up the latest industry news, including company announcements, appointments, product launches, and roll-outs.

Contract wins:

BMJ offers online decision support in Scotland

BMJ is working with NHS Scotland to provide its BMJ Best Practice online decision support tool to healthcare professionals in the country. Since July staff at all NHS organisations across Scotland have been able to access the tool in their workplace or remotely. Community-based professionals and people in remote locations can also use the BMJ Best Practice app, which provides offline access.

Roll-outs:

East Midlands AHSN supports ChatHealth expansion

East Midlands Academic Health Science Network is investing £100,000 to support the wider uptake of Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust’s ChatHealth messaging service to support teenagers with mental health issues. The funding will cover such areas as staff training and implementation support at NHS trusts who want to license use of the service, which was one of the winners of the recent NHS Innovation Challenge Prizes.

Appointments:

Professor Simon Jones joins MedeAnalytics

Professor Simon Jones has joined MedeAnalytics as a director and chief data scientist. Professor Jones has worked in academia, in the NHS, and in industry, and is an expert in predictive risk modelling and creating algorithms for the analysis of population health and planning. At MedeAnalytics he will focus on helping joined-up health economies to avoid unnecessary hospital admissions and other treatments and on making the most effective use of resources.

Awards:

NHS organisations win at NDL awards

Both the NHS South East Commissioning Support Unit and Mersey Care NHS Trust were among the winners at the NDL Awards. NHS South East CSU picked up the Most Innovative Project for its toolkit to analyse a patient’s healthcare history to identify those at high risk of future hospital admission. Mersey Care won Best Mobile Project for two apps it developed for Ashworth Hospital, a high security psychiatric hospital.

Vote now for your champion of the year!

Don't forget that voting is now open for the Healthcare IT Champion of the Year, the category of the EHI Awards 2015 decided by the readers of Digital Health News. This year's nominees include Chris Netherton, the managing director of Microtest, alongside Peter Coates from the NHS England open source programme, Andrew Griffiths, the NHS chief information officer for Wales, Claire Johnston from Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust, and Lesley Deacon from Ealing Hospital.