Industry news in brief

The latest Digital Health News industry round-up includes a tool for GPs to remote monitor their patients with depression, new imaging tech for one trust and a ‘virtual ward’ platform deployed to support Covid patients.

Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust to standardise its cancer patient data

Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust is working with Imosphere to standardise its cancer patient data to the Observational Medical Outcomes Partnership (OMOP) Common Data Model (CDM).

The project will ultimately help Leeds Teaching Hospitals to increase the impact of its clinical research on patient outcomes and wellbeing.

With the chance to join national and international collaborations to understand clinical pathways and outcomes based on real-world data, Leeds Teaching Hospitals will use the OMOP CDM to make sure their data is available to the wider research community, with a data platform supporting service and research needs.

Geoff Hall, chief clinical information officer (research and innovation) at Leeds, said: “Making real-world data available at scale is fundamental to support research, the advancement of patient care and better outcomes. As a large trust, we receive requests all the time to contribute to collaborative research studies, and often the route to harmonising views of data is complex and time consuming. The Common Data Model approach is going to open a very wide door to the research community, and we are delighted to contribute to it.”

Imosphere will create the new Data Transformation and Analytical Infrastructure for the project under the European Health Data and Evidence Network (EHDEN) Harmonisation Fund. After the OMOP CDM project it will provide knowledge transfer, enabling Leeds Teaching Hospitals to continue the focus on transformation of its data.

Mark Rogers, data transformation services manager at Imosphere, said: “the benefits of harnessing the OMOP CDM for collaborative research will be significantly beneficial to the research community, with the potential to improve outcomes for patients across Europe and beyond.

“It’s a comforting feeling to know that a researcher can utilise this high-quality data to support their work, alongside comparable sources from across the globe.”

Livi launches remote monitoring tool for depression

Livi has launched a remote monitoring tool through its Mjog platform, enabling GPs to support patients with depression and mental health issues; it means that patients will be able to get help via their smartphones.

Through a series of smart messages sent directly to patients, Mjog by Livi, will guide patients through nine questions based on the clinically-proven PHQ-9 test for depression. The results will be securely coded onto individuals’ medical records, so that they can access the correct treatment.

Those who receive a medium score will be directed to self-care advice, and GPS can schedule an appointment if they feel it is needed. Higher scores will mean patients are encouraged to book a GP appointment and are signposted to local mental health services.

It will cut the time GPs need to spend contacting each patient and manually coding their responses, allowing them instead to focus on effective care.

Harriet Bradley, medical director at Livi, said: “Mjog by Livi’s remote monitoring will help GPs support and monitor patients much more efficiently, and will keep people safer by encouraging them to seek appropriate care at the right time.

“The pressures of the last two years have taken an enormous toll on people and health services are facing a significant challenge. Thousands of people already use our services to seek help for mental health conditions, and later this year Livi will be launching services designed to help people manage their mental health, and get faster access to treatment including talking therapies and internet cognitive behavioural therapy.”

Further monitoring tools are already in the pipeline for Mjog by Livi. An asthma questionnaire is already live, with an anxiety questionnaire launching next month. It is working with NHS partners to develop a priority list which will assist GPs in monitoring their patients.

Inhealthcare and Sirona care and health tackle home-based Covid care

Inhealthcare is working with Sirona care and health to help scale up its home-based NHS care for vulnerable patients diagnosed with Covid.

Sirona’s NHS- and local authority-funded community services now includes a ‘virtual ward’ service from Inhealthcare for people classified as high risk to Covid, across Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire. The service is able to safely and securely connect people with clinicians to support early intervention where necessary.

In particular, the technology is designed to spot ‘silent hypoxia’ – where patients suffer low oxygen levels without significant shortness of breath. Through a pulse oximeter, patients can monitor oxygen saturation levels and report back to healthcare teams through emails, text message or automated telephone calls.

Inhealthcare’s technology means clinicians can reduce face-to-face contact, and allow people to recover at home while still receiving support. Staff will receive individual readings via a web-based dashboard, as well as alerts flagging patients who may be deteriorating, require additional support, or who have not submitted readings. It also provides regular data reports on patients progress through the care pathway.

Jen Tomkinson, head of specialist services at Sirona, said: “It would be impossible to provide home-based care to such large numbers of people in our communities without Inhealthcare’s digital and data capabilities. Before we had this technology, we were making three phone calls a day to every person being cared for at home.

“The new service provides peace of mind for people because they know they are being looked after and it saves valuable time for our clinical teams so they can focus on vulnerable people who need the most care.”

King’s College Hospital chooses Fujufilm CR system

King’s College Hospital has selected Fujifilm’s Computed Radiography (CR) service to replace its current CR equipment which has reached the end of its life span.

To extend its imaging capacity and to act as a back up for its digital radiography equipment, it has installed an FCR Capsula x-ray system in Liver ICU, NICU and General X-Ray, plus an FCR Profext x-ray system in A&E.

Sarah Gower, superintendent radiographer at King’s College Hospital, said: “We purchased the Fujifilm CR systems to use throughout the department, supplementing our DR imaging facilities and also providing a downtime contingency if required.

“The image quality is good and the Fujifilm system is smaller and takes up less room than the prior CR units that were replaced. The Fujifilm system is user friendly and we found applications support and advice has also been helpful.”

Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust signs with Radar Healthcare

Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust has signed a major contract with Radar Healthcare for its quality and compliance platform, to help streamline process and improve patient safety.

The system will enable clinical staff in community services to log and manage live incidents, and then analyse data to reduce the risk of future adverse incidents. It also brings together operational and regulatory processes into one place so that there is a holistic view of quality and performance trust-wide.

The platform will consolidate processes that were previously handled by multiple systems across the trust, once it is fully rolled out. The first two modules of the Radar Healthcare system will go live to the trust’s full staff by the end of this month, meaning they will be able to comply with policy, carry out audits, manage documents remotely and action improvement plans from a mobile device.

Jackie Davenport, Hertfordshire’s assistant director of governance and business support, said: “By using a fully integrated solution, we will be able to analyse data from multiple sources automatically to provide a holistic view and reduce the pressures on our workforce by streamlining our existing systems and processes.”

Radar Healthcare is currently working alongside the trust so that the system can be tailored to its policies and procedures. Company CEO, Paul Johnson, said: “Radar Healthcare’s interoperable capability combined with its smart analytics will enable real-time risk reporting across the Trust, allowing clinical staff to focus on care while being even more effective in how they manage risk.”