Digital Health Coffee Time Briefing ☕ 

Your morning summary of digital health news, information and events to know about if you want to be “in the know”.

👇 News   

👵 An award-winning care home provider has become the first in the UK to roll-out a ‘revolutionary’ Scandinavian state-of-the-art falls prevention technology in a project which is already seeing impressive results. Dormy Care Communities, which operates four luxury care homes across England and Wales, has partnered with Norway-based Sensio to install RoomMate, a revolutionary safety sensor. 

👨‍💻 Multiple organisations from across the region are joining the University of Birmingham in a project to drive new healthcare technologies towards commercialisation. The West Midlands Health Tech Innovation Accelerator (WMHTIA) project has received £14 million in funding from the West Midlands Combined Authorities’ Innovation Accelerator which is part of an Innovate UK funded programme. The project is focused on addressing the challenges of bringing new medical and healthcare technologies into the UK market. It aims to unite key players in universities, hospitals, industry and government-funded ‘Catapults’ for manufacturing innovation to help companies navigate ‘pinch-points’ in the commercialisation process. 

🤖 Nuffield Health Parkside Hospital in Wimbledon, London, has treated its first four patients with the da Vinci Xi surgical system, a leading robotic-assisted surgical system that enables consultant surgeons to perform with greater precision, with patients likely to experience less pain and faster recoveries after the robot-assisted surgery. 

📸 NHS boards across the UK are using revolutionary technology to give GPs access to rapid advice from consultant dermatologists. Consultant Connect’s technology allows photos and files to be taken, stored, and forwarded directly to dermatology consultants. The PhotoSAF technology is the UK’s most widely used teledermatology platform, covering over half of the NHS across England, Scotland and Wales. 3,500 NHS organisations, including GP practices and trusts, use the service. 

👩‍⚕️ A landmark clinical trial has revealed promising benefits for patients with multiple chronic conditions and at elevated risk of needing urgent care, using AI predictive models and supported through intensive nurse-led coaching. The findings, published today in the Emergency Medicine Journal, stem from a randomised controlled trial (RCT) conducted by HN (Health Navigator Ltd) in the NHS, across eight NHS hospital trusts, with advice and guidance from the Nuffield Trust. The national study included 1,767 patients identified at high risk of disease progression and emergency care, using a specialised AI algorithm on their routine health data. 

❓ Did you know that?  

Antimicrobial resistance is predicted to kill 10 million people (more than the population of London) every year by 2050, and the World Health Organisation names it one of the world’s top 10 threats. Innovate UK, LifeArc, and Medicines Discovery Catapult (MDC) have joined forces to create PACE (Pathways to Antimicrobial Clinical Efficacy), a £30 million initiative supporting early-stage innovation against antimicrobial resistance (AMR) to save lives.  

📖 What we’re reading 

ChatGPT and similar chatbot-style AI software may soon serve a critical frontline role in the healthcare industry. Some may be inclined to ask ChatGPT for medical advice instead of searching the internet for answers, which prompts the question of whether chatbox AI is accurate and reliable for answering medical questions, William A. Haseltine reports in Forbes. 

🚨 This week’s events 

20 October, Digital Health Networks – EPR Implementations: Lessons Learned … Don’t do it! But, if you have to, know this …