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Showing results for tags 'Digital health'.
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Content ArticleBefore the emergence of the novel coronavirus and the subsequent pandemic, the health and care system had a poor track record in adopting digital technologies at scale. However, in response to the pandemic the healthcare system rapidly implemented new tools, many technology-based, to allow healthcare to be delivered when physical contact is not possible. The approach to using digital tools in health care provision is undergoing a substantial and rapid shift. Many of the technologies adopted during the first phase of the pandemic were already well established but not widely implemented; the maturity of the technology enabled the provision of healthcare through remote consultation to be much more prevalent much more quickly. Despite this recent rapid adoption of digital technologies, the health and care system remains at the early stages of digital health, with many tools replicating physical approaches and processes rather than taking advantage of what makes digital different.
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Content ArticleThe Professional Record Standards Body (PRSB) has published a new report on lessons learned from the pandemic to support the future of digital change in health and care. Following a consultation process with 100 of its members, PRSB has published the report examining the digital transformation of services during the pandemic and it recommends how the system can use the lessons in the future. The Digital Health and Care and COVID-19 report recommendations include building on the enthusiasm for digital but reviewing and evaluating safety implications, particularly for remote and virtual consultation where both clinical risk and patient access need to be addressed. The report also includes a focus on quality in practice, including the use of apps and other digital technologies.
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Content ArticleOne of the areas where Human Factors is getting more traction is within the healthcare sector. It is still a slow burner though with lots more work to be done, and this is getting more urgent as new technologies are available to make procedures and processes better and potentially support more effective patient outcomes. Dr Mark Sujan has taken this challenge head on by launching the Artificial Intelligence and Digital Health Special Interest Group with the CIEHF. In this podcast, we find out more about Mark and his motivations, as well as what his intentions for the Special Interest Group are.
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Event2020 has undoubtedly played a key role in forcing NHS organisations to sit up and take note of the productivity increases and money-saving benefits that digital tools and tech can have, this event aims to share some core policy updates and best practice from across the UK. This fully immersive Securing Secondary Care Excellence: The Virtual Acute Technology Conference platform will allow you to listen, learn and engage with some key policy-shaping guest speakers, network with peers from across the NHS and meet some of the UK’s most forward-thinking and innovative commercial problem solvers. Register
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EventData and Information have been and continues to be a crucial and integral part of the health services fight against COVID-19. Data and patient information are constantly being used in new ways to help to care for people and help the NHS and social care to better understand and respond to the virus. NHS England along with NHSX are currently using data as evidence to help shape new care models and keep the public safe from the COVID-19 virus. The newly established NHS COVID-19 Data Store will provide a high-value tool for helping NHS monitor data sets and establish trends. This data can be used to look at several things such as bed capacity in hospitals or the number of ventilators available in a specific area. Our Developing new care models: The NHS Virtual Data & Information Congress will provide delegates with an interactive overview of this new Data Store and share best practices from across the UK. Key data-driven topics include; • Using health data responsibly and safely for research and innovation • Supporting vulnerable people (GP Records) • Remote patient monitoring • Security and regulation • Much more... Register
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News ArticleLondon-based HealthUnlocked has been acquired by worldwide leader Corrona. HealthUnlocked is a social network of 1.3 million patients across hundreds of condition-specific communities. Moderated by over 500 patient advocacy groups, it captures insights to better understand what matters most to these patients. Corrona, based in Massachusetts, US, describes itself as a built-for-purpose source of gold-standard real-world evidence. “By combining with HealthUnlocked, we are expanding our broad set of capabilities–ranging from highly granular and longitudinal structured data across our eight registries, to broader patient insights from HealthUnlocked,” said Abbe Steel, Chief Patient Officer of Corrona. “The HealthUnlocked communities provide access to engaged patients across the globe, allowing us to better understand the patient experience and what matters most to patients." Read full story Source: Business Cloud, 22 October 2020
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Content ArticleA rapid-learning report on the role of Patient Safety Collaboratives (PSCs) during the pandemic has been published by the AHSN Network. PSCs are just one part of the health and care system which responded quickly to the immediate crisis from COVID-19 in March. They reprioritised their day-to-day work and took on new programmes at speed, such as promoting safer tracheostomy care. The report has been published as part of the NHS Reset campaign and gives examples of how PSCs refocused their work ‘almost overnight’ to respond to the pandemic. It illustrates some of the creative ways AHSNs supported their local systems and how this experience will be built into future patient safety programmes.
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News ArticleA pharmacist-led, new digital intervention that improves patient safety when prescribing medication in general practice reduced rates of hazardous prescribing by more than 40%, 12 months after it had been introduced to 43 GP practices in Salford, finds a new study. Due to its success, plans are underway to roll it out across Greater Manchester. Prescribing and medication are one of the biggest causes of patient safety incidents and the third WHO Global Patient Safety Challenge is focussed on Medication without Harm. The SMASH intervention addresses this. It was developed by researchers at the National Institute for Health Research Greater Manchester Patient Safety Translational Research Centre (NIHR GM PSTRC), which is a partnership between The University of Manchester and Salford Royal hospital in collaboration with The University of Nottingham. Pharmacists working in general practice use the SMASH dashboard to identify patients who are exposed to potentially hazardous prescribing. For example, patients with a history of internal bleeding may be prescribed medications such as aspirin which could increase the risk of further internal bleeds without prescribing other treatments to protect them. SMASH identifies this and warns healthcare professionals about it, who can then decide on a possible course of action. The intervention is unique due to its ability to provide near real time feedback to prescribers as it updates every evening. Professor Darren Ashcroft, Research Lead for the Medication Safety theme at the GM PSTRC, said: "We worked with the Safety Informatics theme at the GM PSTRC to develop then test SMASH. It is designed to improve patient safety in general practice by reducing potential problems made when prescribing medication and inadequate blood-test monitoring. It brings together people and data to reduce these common medication safety problems that all too often can cause serious harm." Read full story Source: EurekAlert, 14 October 2020
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Content ArticlePeek et al. evaluated the impact of the pharmacist-led Safety Medication dASHboard (SMASH) intervention on medication safety in primary care. SMASH was developed by researchers at the National Institute for Health Research Greater Manchester Patient Safety Translational Research Centre (NIHR GM PSTRC), which is a partnership between The University of Manchester and Salford Royal hospital in collaboration with The University of Nottingham. Pharmacists working in general practice use the SMASH dashboard to identify patients who are exposed to potentially hazardous prescribing. The study found that the SMASH intervention was associated with reduced rates of potentially hazardous prescribing and inadequate blood-test monitoring in general practices. This reduction was sustained over 12 months after the start of the intervention for prescribing but not for monitoring of medication. There was a marked reduction in the variation in rates of hazardous prescribing between practices.
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Content Article
Alexa, do I have COVID-19? (30 September 2020)
lzipperer posted an article in Other health and care software
This article in Nature explores how voice activation technologies have potential to diagnose coronavirus infections, dementia and depression. Emily Anthes discusses efforts around the globe to reach the highly anticipated potential of this technology in healthcare. -
EventIn today’s world of multidisciplinary care, good communication between professionals and with patients makes all the difference. The digital transformation the sector was already undergoing pre-pandemic to replace postal and fax systems with email has been dramatically accelerated by COVID-19. 94% of organisations are now sending more emails due to remote working and distanced service delivery. But more email means more risk to patient data. In fact, email data breaches happen every 12 working hours. With busy clinical and administrative staff focused on delivering high-quality care, it’s time for security solutions stepped up to eradicate the everyday mistakes they make, such as attaching the wrong file to an email or adding an incorrect recipient. Join this webinar to discuss the importance of human layer security within digital transformation to ensures patient data is kept secure, while also facilitating the email communications that are fundamental to multidisciplinary care. Presenters: Clive Flashman, Chief Digital Office, Patient Safety Learning; Dr Saif F Abed, Founding Partner & Director, Cybersecurity Advisory Services, The AbedGraham Group; Sudeep Venkatesh, Chief Product Officer, Egress Register
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EventuntilThe 2020 MindTech Symposium (#MindTech2020) will be held online as a virtual event for the very first time. The Symposium topic is ‘Digital Mental Health in the Age of Covid-19’ The session times are as follows: Wednesday 2nd December 2020: 8.00pm - 9.00pm: The digital mental health response to COVID-19: A global Perspective Thursday 3rd December 2020: 1st Session 10.00am - 11.30am: A rapid digital response to a global pandemic 2nd Session 1.15pm - 2.30pm: Virtual PPI: the way forward? 3rd Session 3.00pm - 4.00pm: Rethinking mental health services for a brave new world post-COVID-19 Wednesday evening’s opening session will embrace a global perspective on the digital mental health response to COVID-19 and includes international expert panellists Helen Christensen (Australia), John Torous (USA) and Sally Merry (New Zealand). Thursday’s sessions will cover emerging technologies and how they can be harnessed in the ‘new normal’ of mental healthcare in the post-Covid world. Thursday will also host a dedicated session encompassing Patient & Public Involvement (PPI) and user-centred co-design in a virtual world. This session will be delivered by MindTech’s own PPI group. Register
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Content Article
NHS e-Review platform
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Regulatory bodies/standards/guidance
A national bespoke system, called NHS e-Review, has been developed and launched as part of the NHS Covid Incident Recovery programme. The online system has been developed to support clinicians record the clinical priority of patients on a waiting list and to identify alternative pathways for patients if required. -
Content Article
Telemedicine: What is its role in patient safety?
PatientSafetyLearning Team posted an article in Telemedicine
In this webinar, produced by Patient Safety Movement, Dr Steve Barker is joined by Ronald Weinstein, Director/Founder, Arizona Telemedicine Program, and Jeffrey Dunn, Founder/CEO, Redivus Health. They discuss the future of telemedicine within the patient safety and quality improvement space. Telemedicine has become a significant area of investment in recent years and the panellists predict that, in the future, user experience, consolidation, customisation based on relevance to the user, robotics, and health literacy will become top priorities. -
Content ArticleAs trusts consider clearing the waiting list, there is an absence of objective approaches to prioritisation. There are 40 million variations of operative type and the NHS elective waiting list may reach more than 10 million. A coronavirus second wave may cause further delays and expansion of the waiting list. This blog from hub topic lead Richard Jones describes a proven approach to prioritising the waiting list built around individualised risk-adjustment for each patient and evolved from the core POSSUM methodology that is widely used for individual risk assessment pre-operatively.
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Content ArticleThe Clinical Command Centre is designed to optimise many aspects of day-to-day patient care and help create better patient experiences, outcomes, and lower costs. It makes sense of vast amounts of data for hospitals and healthcare systems worldwide. Today, Command Centres are also helping these systems meet the challenge of COVID-19. Currently, Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (BTHFT) is the only Trust in Europe equipped with this technology which is likely to be crucial in dealing with any second wave of COVID-19 cases. In this video, Mel Pickup, CEO of BTHFT, shed some light on how they've been using advanced data visualisation and the vision for using it in the future. By making sense of vast amounts of operational data, the technology is enabling leadership teams to make critical, real-time decisions about patient care.
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News Article
Seven NHS hospital trusts to receive share of £8.7m for e-prescribing
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
A further £8.7million is to be dished out to seven NHS hospital trusts to introduce digital records and e-prescribing. The money is part of a £78million investment which was announced in February 2018 and aims to accelerate the roll out of electronic prescribing systems across the NHS. The latest funding is part of the third wave of the investment, which will be handed out over three years. In 2018/ 19, £16.2 million was awarded, £29.4 million was given in 2019/20 and another £12 million will be invested later this year. The seven trusts which will benefit from this latest round of finding are: Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust (£1.7m) Solent NHS Trust (£988,000) Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust (£637,000) United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust (£1.26m) North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Trust (£2m) East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust (£1.6m) Birmingham Community NHS Trust (£531,000) National director of patient safety, Dr Aidan Fowler, said: “Patient safety is of paramount importance and is something we are continuously looking at ways to improve, whether through new technology, such as the introduction of electronic prescribing, or by building a safety culture where all NHS staff feel supported and safe to speak up.” Read full story Source: Digital Health, 1 October 2020 -
News Article
Need for tech to reduce medication error and improve patient safety
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Omnicell UK & Ireland, a leading provider of automated healthcare and medication adherence solutions, hosted a health summit on the eve of World Patient Safety Day, to discuss the impact of medication errors on patients and the NHS. The session focussed on the role technology can play in preventing such issues. The summit, this year held via webinar, comes off the backdrop of the Department of Health and Social Care disclosing that in England 237 million mistakes occur every year at some point in the medication process. These errors cause serious issues for patient safety, but also place a significant cost burden on an already stretched NHS. The 2019 Patient Safety Strategy published by NHS England and NHS Improvement also found the NHS failed to save 11,000 lives a year due to safety concerns with the cost of extra treatment needed following incidents being over £1bn. A number of high-profile panel members answered a series of questions from the audience on solutions and best practice to improve patient safety with the aim of debating and sharing ideas on how to meet challenges and the impact of COVID-19. One of the panelists, Patient Safety Learning's Chief Digital Office Clive Flashman, agreed with the other panel members that the NHS had become more collaborative and familiar with technology since Covid: “We’ve seen a definite increase in telehealth and telemeds. Covid has forced cultural blockers that were there before to be removed out of necessity. There has been a growth in robotic pharmacy automation to free up staff time from high volume administration tasks to do more complex work that adds value for patients.” But with the second-wave of COVID-19 still a very real threat he advised: “We don’t want to wait until the next wave to learn a lesson – we need to learn lessons now. Quality Improvement Leads should be focussed on what went right and what went wrong over that period between March and May. They need to be looking at what we can learn from that now and what we can do differently next time. If we don’t do that, we won’t succeed in the second wave where we might fail.” Ed Platt, Automation Director, Omnicell UK & Ireland, added: “Challenges within the NHS throughout Covid has forced them to embrace technology and drive innovation." "It’s important that when things go back to normal, we don’t go back to the same status quo. We need to invest in the right infrastructure in hospitals so unnecessary demands and stress are not put on pharmacy, supply managers and nurses so they are free to focus on patient care not administration tasks." Read full story Source: NHE, 17 September 2020 You can watch the webinar on demand here -
Content ArticleBarnsley NHS Trust Head of Nursing Quality Gavin Portier and Patient Safety Learning Founder and Chair Jonathan Hazan sit down to discuss how positive messaging and learning around patient safety produces positive outcomes.
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Content ArticleIn these times where the pressure of track and trace is ramping up around the world in the wake of expectations of a return to normality, Matt Pattison talks with Professor Effy Vayena from ETH Zurich about her work with the Swiss government in ethics, digital and the risks and rewards viewed under an ethical lens in the TEN podcast.
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Content ArticleThe COVID-19 crisis has created a watershed moment for the NHS, demanding a reappraisal of how essential services are delivered to the public. Even prior to COVID-19, the NHS recognised a pressing need to rethink healthcare using user-centred design principles, based on populations, not organisations. With the advent of the pandemic that pressing need has become an operational imperative. Digital capability has been and will continue to be a key part of transformation, but will only work when aligned with reforms in other key enablers such as financial flow, workforce planning and regulation. Many industries have already made the shift to enabling collaboration and innovation through more agile models of delivery by embracing technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), internet of things (IoT) and/or flexible and secure forms of (multi) cloud storage. Health, on the other hand, until now has introduced new technologies with the objective of improving existing pathways and service delivery models. There is now an opportunity to reimagine healthcare, driving true transformation enabled by digital capabilities.
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News ArticleMore patients and healthcare staff will benefit from single electronic patient records as 7 hospital trusts receive a share of £8.7 million to introduce digital records and e-prescribing, Minister for Patient Safety Nadine Dorries announced today on World Patient Safety Day. The roll-out has already been introduced to over 130 NHS trusts, and is part of a £78 million investment to deliver the ambition set out in the NHS Long Term Plan to introduce electronic prescribing systems across the NHS. NHS trusts will now be able to more quickly access potentially lifesaving information on prescribed medicines and patient history, and build a more complete, single electronic patient record, which reduces duplication of information-gathering, saves staff time and can reduce medication errors by up to 30%. The funding was announced at a virtual conference organised by Imperial College London to mark World Patient Safety Day. Read press release Source: Gov.uk, 17 September 2020
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EventuntilPatient Safety: Embracing technology in a rapidly evolving healthcare environment to reduce medication errors. In England 237 million mistakes occur at some point in the medication process. By embracing technology that already exists, we may actually hold the key to being able to significantly reduce this figure. Join Andrea Jenkyns MP, pharmacy and nursing thought leaders and patient safety representatives for an interactive discussion on embracing technology to reduce medication errors. The timing of this event is particularly significant as World Patient Safety Day takes place the following day and so these issues should be at the forefront of policy makers minds. Confirmed panelists include: Prof. Liz Kay, Former Director of Pharmacy at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust Heather Randle, Lead for Medication Management at Royal College of Nursing Clive Flashman, Chief Digital Officer at Patient Safety Learning Ed Platt, Automation Director, Omnicell Registration
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Content ArticleThis special Patient Safety Network Perspective compiles findings and insights into a series of case studies from interviews and written responses from leaders at three different health systems who had to increase their telehealth capacities in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Content Article
Could telemedicine solve the cancer backlog?
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Telemedicine
Although millions of patients with cancer around the world face delays in diagnosis and treatment because of the diversion of resources during the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a growing expectation that telemedicine may play a central role in easing the backlog. This Lancet Digital Health article explores how telemedicine will be key as healthcare systems move forward in tackling the backlog in not only cancer treatment but also diagnosis, and how augmented intelligence (AI) could be used to help to optimise its use.
