Hitachi to prove concepts in Manchester

Five Manchester healthcare organisations and Japanese company Hitachi have begun two proof of concept projects to improve healthcare technologies.

The Japanese company also recently launched its European Big Data Laboratory at the University of Manchester Innovation Centre.

Martin Gibson, chief executive of Northwest E-Health, one of the NHS organisations involved, told EHI that over the next six months, the team will deliver two projects.

The first is working on developing a federated data platform, sharing patient data across care settings. Gibson said the project would include continuing to build on work that has been done before.

“One of the things we have already done is a platform which allows us to look at anonymised datasets. It lets you look at care pathways, which we’re working with now, and we can superimpose a care pathway on top of the data,” he said.

“The next plan is to make this much bigger. Right now it works across one third of Manchester, but we want to make it a federated data platform. This data platform is something we’re working on with Hitachi and hope to roll it out over the next 12 months, providing the proof of concept is successful.”

The collaborative with the Japanese company, which was signed in April this year, includes NHS Greater Manchester, the Manchester Academic Health Science Centre and NorthWest EHealth, a partnership between the University of Manchester, Salford Royal NHS Trust and NHS Salford.

Gibson said he is excited about the scope of opportunities this brings to Manchester.

“The Big Data Laboratory offers a unique opportunity to create new analytical tools and technologies for improving the delivery of healthcare and to enhance the quality and safety of care,” he said.

“It’s a partnership across Manchester. We’re bringing together all these organisations to transform healthcare and innovation. One of the most important things is to utilise the information we already hold. It’s an untapped source, but we need some great software to do that.”

The second proof of concept project is on preventing diabetes for people at risk for developing the disease. Gibson explained that this is also a continuation of work that is already on-going.

“Over the past two years, we’ve been looking to see if we can prevent diabetes with a six month programme which is done remotely. At the moment it’s just phone based, but it means the patient has an integrated record. “

“We just want to make the whole thing more sophisticated and hopefully more accessible to the general population.”

Atushi Ugajin, Hitachi’s general manager of healthcare IT business, in the smart information systems division, told EHI that the company had chosen Manchester for its data lab because it is “the most appropriate region to work on proof of concept for the use of informatics to improve services in healthcare.”

“This is because Manchester Academic Health Science Centre and Northwest E-Health have already done some work on implementing IT in Healthcare and promoting the cooperation among industry and academia,” he said.

“We’ve already invested in human resources with approximately 20 staff being based in the UK as well as Japan. In addition to human resources, we have also been investing in the development of programming and services research for this project,” said Ugajin.