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Content ArticleHealth tech company DrDoctor has announced that its COVID-19 toolkit is now available, free of license fees to any hospital that requires it. The bespoke toolkit comprises of the recently released Broadcast Messaging and Video Consultation services and, as of today, the new digital Symptom Assessment Tracker.
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News Article
ORCHA launches COVID-19 Health App Formulary
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Health apps have grown enormously in popularity, even more so during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Since early March, more than 500 health apps contain coronavirus-related keywords in their description. People are taking advice from these apps, often using them to share sensitive information. Yet, in a time of fake reviews, scams and personal data breaches, not all health apps can be trusted. The Organisation for the Review of Care and Health Apps (ORCHA) has launched a health app formulary to help healthcare professionals and consumers know which health apps they can trust. As a free to use resource, the site includes reviews of health apps across a range of health conditions relevant to the COVID-19 pandemic, including reviews of COVID-19 apps launched to date. Read full story Source: ORCHA, 6 April 2020 -
Content Article
Help@Hand Community Info: App
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Good practice and useful resources
Connect with your GP Surgery. Discover a local network of support and wellness activities. Help at Hand is free to use and personalised to you, with vital information for patients, family & friends, carers, and anyone in need of a helping hand. -
News ArticleSingapore plans to open source a smartphone app its digital government team has developed to track citizens' encounters with coronavirus carriers. The app, named TraceTogether, and its government is urging citizens to run so that if they encounter a Coronavirus carrier, it’s easier to trace who else may have been exposed to the virus. With that info in hand, health authorities are better-informed about who needs to go into quarantine and can focus their resources on those who most need assistance. The app is opt-in and doesn’t track users through space, instead recording who you have encountered. To do so, it requires Bluetooth and location services to be turned on when another phone running the app comes into range exchanges four nuggets of information - a timestamp, Bluetooth signal strength, the phone’s model, and a temporary identifier or device nickname. While location services are required, the app doesn't track users, instead helping to calculate distances between them. Read full story Source: The Register, 26 March 2020
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News Article
Covid-stricken city calls in Babylon to ‘relieve pressure’
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Royal Wolverhampton Trust (RWT) has become the first provider to sign a deal with Babylon Health for citywide coverage of a new COVID-19 app, HSJ has learned. Digital health provider Babylon announced earlier this month the creation of a “covid-19 care assistant” app, which provides patients with digital triage, a live chat service, a symptom tracker and video consultation. RWT’s deal covers around 300,000 patients registered to a Wolverhampton GP, and all trust staff regardless of where they live. Earlier this year, RWT announced a 10-year deal with Babylon to develop a “digital-first integrated care” model. The new COVID-19 app will be made available to staff today and will then be rolled out to the general public next week. Read full story Source: HSJ, 3 April 2020 -
News Article
Online triage tools to be ‘rapidly procured’ to manage COVID-19 pressures
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
The procurement of digital tools to support online primary care services during the coronavirus outbreak are to be fast-tracked for providers who don’t have the resources. In a letter sent to primary care providers and commissioners, GP surgeries were told to move to a triage-first model of care as soon as possible as the NHS bolsters its response to COVID-19. The letter, sent by medical director for primary care, Nikita Kanani, and director of primary care strategy and NHS contracts, Ed Waller, states practices and commissioners should promote online consultation services where they are in place or “rapidly procure” them. “Rapid procurement for those practices that do not currently have an online consultation solution will be supported through a national bundled procurement,” wrote in the letter. Read full story Source: Digital Health, 30 March 2020 -
News Article
Coronavirus: NHS uses tech giants to plan crisis response
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Data collected via the NHS's 111 telephone service is to be mixed with other sources to help predict where ventilators, hospital beds, and medical staff will be most in need. The goal is to help health chiefs model the consequences of moving resources to best tackle the coronavirus pandemic. Three US tech firms are aiding the effort - Amazon, Microsoft and Palantir - as well as London-based Faculty AI. The plan is expected to be signed off by Health Secretary Matt Hancock. "Every hospital is going to be thinking: Have we got enough ventilators? Well we need to keep ours because who knows what's going to happen - and that might not be the optimal allocation of ventilators," explained a source in one of the tech companies involved. "Without a holistic understanding of how many we've got, where they are, who can use them, who is trained, where do we actually have patients who need them most urgently, we risk not making the optimal decisions." Read full story Source: BBC News, 26 March 2020 -
News ArticleUniversity Hospitals has partnered with medical technology company Masimo to pilot a telehealth solution, Masimo SafetyNet, that is designed to help clinicians care for patients remotely with a finger sensor and phone app. The demand for remote monitoring and patient engagement in different settings has "significantly increased" during the COVID-19 pandemic. To help prepare for a surge in COVID-19 patients and protect other patients and providers, the tool allows University Hospitals and other hospitals to expand patient monitoring to the home or other locations (for instance, a skilled nursing facility or an under-utilised med-surg floor) that are temporarily set up to address increased demand. Guidelines from the World Health Organization suggest monitoring the oxygen saturation, respiration rate and temperature of suspected or confirmed COVID-19 patients. Adapting this existing technology aims to offer a secure remote solution. Read full story Source: Crain's Cleveland Business, 23 March 2020
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News Article
NHSX is working on a contact tracking App
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
NHSX is working on a contact tracking app to trace the spread of coronavirus through the population. Contact tracking is already in limited use for people who have tested positive and the discipline has a long history in tuberculosis outbreaks. In a statement sent to HSJ, Matthew Gould, Chief Executive of NHSX, said : “NHSX are looking at whether app-based solutions might be helpful in tracking and managing coronavirus, and we have assembled expertise from inside and outside the organisation to do this as rapidly as possible.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 18 March 2020 -
News Article
NHS COVID-19 live impact assessment tool launched
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Draper & Dash, a leading predictive patient flow provider, has launched a COVID-19 live hospital planning and demand impact assessment tool. The company said it has been working around the clock to deliver its vital tool to support impact assessment. It allows trusts to view and analyse national Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data, alongside a number of live data sources on COVID-19 cases by the minute, as they emerge across the globe. The system models the impact of increased volume and complexity at a local and system level, providing visibility of ICU, theatres, and overall bed impact, and connects this live information to each trust’s clinical workforce. The tool shows immediate impacts on beds and staff under a range of selected scenarios. Read full story Source: Health Tech Newspaper, 18 March 2020 -
News Article
Coronavirus spread has ‘kicked NHS forward in adopting digital solutions’
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
The rapid spread of coronavirus has given the NHS a “kick forward” in the need to accelerate technology and ensure staff are digitally prepared, a GP has said. Neil Paul, a Digital Health columnist and GP in Ashfields, said the need to reduce face-to-face appointments to prevent the potential transmission of Covid-19 has forced the NHS, particularly in primary care, to adopt already available technologies. He said practices “still in the stone ages” and “technophobes” were less prepared for the current situation, but that it would force them to move into the digital age. “It’s absolutely made my surgery go ‘right, how do we do online consults’. I think it actually has given people a real kick forward,” he told Digital Health News. “I think in six months’ time my surgery might be very different in that actually we will be doing a lot of online and telephone consults where previously we may have been a bit reluctant." GP practices across the country have been advised to assess patients online or via telephone and video appointments to mitigate the potential spread of coronavirus. In a letter to GPs last week, NHS England urged Britain’s 7,000 GP surgeries to reduce face-to-face appoints for patients displaying symptoms of Covid-19. The preemptive move means millions of patients will now be triaged online, via telephone or video and contacted via text messaging services. Read full story Source: Digital Health News, 13 March 2020 -
Content Article
Draft NHS Digital Health Technology Standard (24 February 2020)
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in NHS X
NHSX published a draft Digital Health Technology Standard and called for feedback from the industry. The draft standard was been created in collaboration with stakeholders from across the digital health ecosystem. NHSX wanted to gather feedback from a wider range of voices who have an interest in digital health, including developers, clinicians, commissioners and patient groups, to ensure it is robust, ambitious and attainable. -
Content ArticleORCHA is the world’s leading health app evaluation and advisor organisation. In this interview, Chief Executive, Liz Ashall-Payne, tells us how ORCHA is driving safety improvements across the globe, empowering patients and highlights the danger of a poorly designed health app.
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Content ArticleHealth systems throughout the world are now more focused on creating a more patient-centred approach to healthcare, ensuring the voice of the patient is heard through every level of the system. This focus on the patient is driven by a desire to improve quality of care as the two are inevitably linked. However, some countries are struggling to change systems which take a traditional approach based on a patient’s clinical presentation of signs and symptoms, followed with a management plan and medical treatment. This report highlights many ways in which we can give patients more say in the decisions about their treatment and care. It draws on keynote presentations and seminars from ISQua 2017 – a world-leading conference on quality improvement.
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News Article
Coronavirus reveals limits of AI health tools
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Technology and healthcare companies are racing to roll out new tools to test for and eventually treat the coronavirus epidemic spreading around the world. But one sector that is holding back are the makers of artificial-intelligence-enabled diagnostic tools, increasingly championed by companies, healthcare systems and governments as a substitute for routine doctor-office visits. In theory, such tools, sometimes called “symptom checkers” or healthcare bots,sound like an obvious short-term fix: they could be used to help assess whether someone has Covid-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus, while keeping infected people away from crowded doctor’s offices or emergency rooms where they might spread it. These tools vary in sophistication. Some use a relatively simple process, like a decision tree, to provide online advice for basic health issues. Other services say they use more advanced technology, like algorithms based on machine learning, that can diagnose problems more precisely. But some digital-health companies that make such tools say they are wary of updating their algorithms to incorporate questions about the new coronavirus strain. Their hesitancy highlights both how little is known about the spread of Covid-19 and the broader limitations of healthcare technologies marketed as AI in the face of novel, fast-spreading illnesses. Some companies say they don’t have enough data about the new coronavirus to plug into their existing products. London-based symptom-checking app Your.MD Ltd. recently added a “coronavirus checker” button that leads to a series of questions about symptoms. But it is based on a simple decision tree. The company said it won’t update the more sophisticated technology underpinning its main system, which is based on machine learning. “We made a decision not to do it through the AI because we haven’t got the underlying science,” said Maureen Baker, Chief Medical Officer for Your.MD. She said it could take 6 to 12 months before sufficient peer-reviewed scientific literature becomes available to help inform the redesign of algorithms used in today’s more advanced symptom checkers. Read full story Source: The Wall Street Journal, 29 February 2020 -
News Article
Digital health: Is it clinically effective?
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Babylon Health use AI to provide health care to UK patients – even Health Secretary Matt Hancock uses it. But experts have questioned whether there’s enough evidence of the safety of its AI chatbot service. Watch the BBC Newsnight report -
News Article
Regulating AI in health and care
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
In his latest blog post, Matthew Gould, CEO of NHSX, has reiterated the potential AI has to reduce the burden on the NHS by improving patient outcomes and increasing productivity. However, he said there are gaps in the rules that govern the use of AI and a lack of clarity on both standards and roles. These gaps mean there is a risk of using AI that is unsafe and that NHS organisations will delay employing AI until all the regulatory gaps have been filled. Gould says, “The benefits will be huge if we can find the sweet spot” that allows trust to be maintained whilst creating the freedom for innovation but warns that we are not in that position yet. At the end of January, the CEOs and heads of 12 regulators and associated organisations met to work through these issues and discuss what was required to ensure innovation-friendly processes and regulations are put in place. They agreed there needs to be a clarity of role for these organisations, including the MHRA being responsible for regulating the safety of AI systems; the Health Research Agency (HRA) for overseeing the research to generate evidence; NICE for assessing whether new AI solutions should be deployed; and the CQC to ensure providers are following best practice. Read the full blog Source: Techradar, 13 February 2020 -
News ArticleNHS Digital and the Private Healthcare Information Network (PHIN) have launched a consultation as part of the next phase of a programme to align private healthcare data with NHS recorded activity. The consultation sets out a series of changes to how data is recorded and managed across private and NHS care, along with a series of pilot projects, based upon feedback from a variety of stakeholders. It aims to seek the views of private and NHS providers, clinicians, the public and other organisations with an interest in private healthcare and will be used to help shape the future changes. The consultation, which has been launched following the publication of the Paterson Inquiry, will be hosted on the NHS Digital Consultation Hub. Under the changes proposed in the Acute Data Alignment Programme (ADAPt), PHIN will share the national dataset of private admitted patient care in England with NHS Digital, creating a single source of healthcare data in England. This recommendation has been supported by recommendations in the Paterson Inquiry to create a single repository for practice of consultants in private and public healthcare across England. Health Secretary Matt Hancock said: “Regardless of where you’re treated or how your care is funded, everybody deserves safe, compassionate care. The recent Paterson Inquiry highlighted the shocking failures that can occur when information is not shared and acted upon in both the NHS and independent sector. We are working tirelessly across the health system to deliver the highest standards of care for patients. Trusted data is absolutely critical to this mission and the ADAPt programme will help improve transparency and raise standards for all.” Read full story Source: NHS Digital, 19 February 2020
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News Article
Health Foundation to explore impact of data analytics and technology
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
The Health Foundation will begin exploring the impact of data analytics and technology on health and care in the UK. The independent charity has launched its Data Analytics for Better Health strategy, which aims to tackle real-world problems that affect people’s health and develop a greater understanding of the role that technology and data plays in daily life. The strategy sets out how the Health Foundation aims to help policymakers, practitioners and the wider public get to grip with “seismic changes” taking place in the health sector. Dr Adam Steventon, Director of Data Analytics at the Health Foundation, said: “Data is being used to drive innovation in ways that can revolutionise health care, including early disease detection, easier access to care services and encouraging health promoting behaviours. But such technological advances also carry the risk of harm to patients. As a nation we need to advance our understanding of these fast-moving changes. This new programme of work will help us to do that, enabling us to explore how analytics and data-driven technology can create better heath and care for people across the UK.” Read full story Source: Digital Health, 6 February 2020 -
News Article
New tech allowing district nurses to digitally monitor wounds
Clive Flashman posted a news article in News
A new app has been piloted in North East London to help district nurses document chronic wound management more efficiently. The tech has been used in community services and stores a catalogue of photographs to accurately document chronic wounds. District nurses can use the app on a smartphone – making it lightweight, portable and easy to clean. Using two calibration stickers placed either side of the wound, the app can scan it and capture its size and depth to build a 3D image. Nurses can then fill out further characteristics on the software such as colour, pain level, location and smell to give a full picture of the wound’s development. Read full story Source: Nursing Times, 12 February 2020 -
News Article
Skin cancer apps ‘cannot be relied upon for accurate results’, study finds
Clive Flashman posted a news article in News
Smartphone apps designed to detect the risk of skin cancer are poorly regulated and “frequently cannot be relied upon to produce accurate results”, according to a new analysis. They found the apps may cause harm from failure to identify potentially deadly skin cancers, or from over-investigation of false positive results such as removing a harmless mole unnecessarily. Read full story Source: Digital Health, 14 February 2020 -
News Article
‘Plug-and-play’ regtech solution enhances patient safety
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
With a focus on pharmaceutical supply chain regulation, Bonafi is one of the latest companies to launch within the regtech startup sector. “Companies operating in the global pharma industry must verify that those they are buying from and selling to are authorised to handle medicinal products for human use in their own countries,” explains its founder, Katarina Antill. “At present, this verification process is manual. Companies are using screenshots as proof and relying on spreadsheets to track verification activities, which increases the risk of errors.” “Manual processes are very labour intensive not least because companies must deal with multiple registries across multiple countries,” she says. “Most pharma manufacturers and wholesalers don’t have the resources to reverify their trading partners more than once a year, which is the current minimum legal requirement, and this too creates a potential vulnerability that can ultimately have an impact on patient safety and increase corporate risk. “I could see that this huge volume of manual work was a threat to patient-safety and extremely inefficient,” she adds. “Our solution gives companies much greater control over their compliance activities because they no longer have to rely on manual processes. It can also retrieve and aggregate data from multiple registers across multiple countries and has a constant monitoring and alert system, quality management dashboards, electronic signatures and workflows and will strengthen the attributes of traceability, transparency and security. It is all designed to help companies to be pro-active in their compliance activities, enabling them to go beyond compliance alone to reduce corporate risk and patient risk.” Read full story Source: The Irish Times, 13 February 2020 -
Content ArticleDr James Reed, CCIO, Birmingham & Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust, presented at the recent Bevan Brittan Patient Safety Seminar. As one of the Mental Health & Global Digital Exemplars, James discussed how his trust has implemented innovative digital technology to improve patient observations on the ward. His presentation slides are attached.
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Content ArticleAnna Erhard, Quality and Outcomes Manager at the Schoen Clinic, presented at the recent Bevan Brittan Patient Safety Seminar. Attached are the presentation slides.
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Content ArticleKenny Ajayi, Imperial College Health Partners - Patient Safety Programme Director, presented at the recent Bevan Brittan Patient Safety Seminar. Attached are his presentation slides.
