Industry news in brief

The latest Digital Health News industry round up includes news on an automated recruitment platform for clinical studies, an acquisition in the medical imaging field and an Australian company focused on measuring coding launching into the UK.

Beamtree launches into UK

Former NHS leader, Tim Kelsey, has launched an international division of Beamtree into the UK – an Australian company that focuses on measuring coding and the quality of hospital care.

Kelsey leads the Australian company, but the new London-based arm will be led by coding policy expert Jennifer Nobbs and former Paterson Inquiry advisor Alex Kafetz. Beamtree works with health organisations around the world in a bid to improve the capture, management and leverage of human expertise. The UK office will focus on AI in health, clinical decision support, data quality and analytics supporting better health outcomes.

It’s work will be supported by a global advisory committee – chaired by health expert Mark Britnell – which will provide guidance on strategies and policies to promote best practice and innovation in health data.

The company has also announced two new acquisitions to bolster its support to UK organisations. They are Ainsoff Pty Ltd, a clinician-led healthcare analytics company and Potential (x) an Australian firm that provides comparative analytics to support improvements in care.

King Edward VII’s Hospital introduces LumenEye tech to colorectal service

Independent private hospital King Edward VII’s has added a LumenEye device to its colorectal service to help improve diagnosis for patients and improve the prognosis for patients with colorectal and gastrointestinal diseases.

The LumenEye technology is a digital alternative to the conventional sigmoisoscope. It features a full-high-definition camera to obtain images and video of the lower gastrointestinal tract.

The handheld endoscope offers many benefits to both professionals and patients: It can be operated by a single medical professional and can be used in a normal clinic room setting. It can also be used without the need for anaesthesia, sedation or full bowel preparation.

Mr James Kinross, consultant colorectal surgeon at King Edward VII’s, said: “There has long been a need to re-design cancer pathways and modernise point of care diagnostics so we’re proud to be able to offer this technology at our practice at King Edward VII’s – the first private hospital to do so.

“The LumenEye device is a really important upgrade to a 200-year-old instrument. It’s also an important teaching tool, as it improves accuracy of information collected and makes it easier to share this information with others. This aids us in driving innovation safely forward, as well as helping to standardise best practice and improving patient outcomes.”

As well as detecting polyps and conducting biopsies, the device can also support accurate diagnosis of bowel conditions, with a success rate of 96%. It can also be used as a less invasive alternative to bowel surveillance.

Bupa and Circle Health Group extend contract for three more years

Bupa UK Insurance and Circle Health Group have announced they will continue to work together, after agreeing a new three-year contract.

The new agreement means that customers of Circle – who acquired BMI Healthcare in January 2020 – will continue to receive quality healthcare until at least January 2024 and benefit from sustainable pricing.

The two companies have also agreed on a number of key areas they intend to focus on in order to improve the service customers receive. The duo have made a commitment to enhance the customer journey through streamlined consultant booking processes, roll out Bupa specialist centres for oncology and explore pathway management for MSK, cardiology and skin cancer.

Alex Perry, CEO Bupa UK Insurance said: “We’re delighted to extend our contract with Circle. Our priority is ensuring our customers have convenient access to quality, affordable healthcare services and that they have a great experience when using their health insurance. This new chapter in Circle and Bupa’s relationship will help further these priorities.”

Circle is also exploring the creation of new digital technologies and experiences to support patients as well as integrating with Bupa systems for a faster, digital-first booking experience.

Paolo Pieri, CEO of Circle Health Group added: “We’re committed to becoming the most technology-enabled healthcare provider in the country. This year alone we are investing £100m in the latest equipment, technology and infrastructure and to ensure we continue to give patients the best possible hospital experience, with the highest quality and best technology at the core of our offerings.”

Intelerad Medical Systems acquires Insignia Medical Systems

Intelerad Medical Systems – provider of medical image management solutions – has recently acquired Insignia Medical Systems, a UK-based imaging provider.

Insignia has a unique, secure sharing service that enables clinicians to access images and reports with little administration overheads. Within the UK it is responsible for managing some of the most complex and largest picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) and vendor neutral archive systems (VNA).

The deal will see Insignia have the resources to enhance its technology, expand its footprint and ultimately respond to the changing demands of the UK’s healthcare industry.

“Since our founding, our team has not only delivered innovative technology to our customers, but also a high level of expertise and customer care. Having been dedicated to the UK since day one, we pride ourselves on meeting the unique needs of hospitals and health systems based here” said Richard Dormer, managing director, Insignia.

“Joining forces with Intelerad equips us with even greater opportunities to offer best in class resources and technologies to our healthcare customers.”

Mike Lipps, CEO Intelerad, added: “We are excited to work alongside Insignia as we collectively aim to further provide UK hospitals with the solutions they need to improve key clinical outcomes, while simultaneously offering unparalleled support and service.”

Automated platform speeds up clinical study patient recruitment

uMed’s automated recruitment platform is able to considerably accelerate the recruitment of patients for clinical studies – according to the company it can achieve in just days what would traditionally take months.

The traditional method of recruiting patients onto clinical studies – such as manual referrals from healthcare practitioners – could soon be a thing of the past, and save professionals the time needed to manually check every patient record.

The cloud-based engagement technology was recently used by Closed Loop Medicine (CLM) with a target of recruiting 200 patients for study. uMed’s application enabled it to find and refer 44 patients in the space of just three days – this volume of patients in one month could take up to six months using traditional approaches.

Dr Matt Wilson, uMed founder and CEO, said: “Our platform seamlessly links health record data to patient engagement tools. So we can help researchers, GPs and other clinicians study across a large number of sites, and create the capacity for them to participate in many more of these studies than would otherwise be possible. The end result is that patients are highly motivated and we find very few screen failures on recruitment.”

The uMed platform connects with each patient’s EHR and deliver automated, personalised digital communications throughout the study. By connecting in this way it enables other remote conversations to be hard – such as questionnaires or follow-on surveys – which leads to a rich data set of the electronic health record.

The outcome is that crucial time is saved for patients, healthcare professionals and admin teams and study participants are able to report directly into a secure clinical data point using pseudonymised data.