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Showing results for tags 'Digital health'.
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Content ArticleThe horrifying case of neonatal nurse Lucy Letby, convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder six others at the Countess of Chester Hospital, has raised hard questions for NHS leaders about how organisations respond to concerns about staff, but could digital systems help detect NHS staff who harm patients at an earlier point? If the pattern connecting Letby to the babies’ deaths had been detected by a digital system, would the response from the trust have been different? Would a machine have been believed? Alison Leary, chair of healthcare and workforce modelling at London South Bank University and a leading expert on nursing and data, suggests there is potentially a much bigger role for digital in patient safety.
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Content ArticleDelirium is a common but underdiagnosed state of disturbed attention and cognition that afflicts one in four older hospital inpatients. It is independently associated with a longer length of hospital stay, mortality, accelerated cognitive decline and new-onset dementia. Risk stratification models enable clinicians to identify patients at high risk of an adverse event and intervene where appropriate. The advent of wearables, genomics, and dynamic datasets within electronic health records (EHRs) provides big data to which machine learning (ML) can be applied to individualise clinical risk prediction. ML is a subset of artificial intelligence that uses advanced computer programmes to learn patterns and associations within large datasets and develop models (or algorithms), which can then be applied to new data in rapidly producing predictions or classifications, including diagnoses. The objectives of this review from Strating et al. were to: (1) provide a more contemporary overview of research on all ML delirium prediction models designed for use in the inpatient setting; (2) characterise them according to their stage of development, validation and deployment; and (3) assess the extent to which their performance and utility in clinical practice have been evaluated.
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Content ArticleHealthcare is where the "most exciting" opportunities for artificial intelligence (AI) lie, an influential MP has said, but is also an area where the technology's major risks are illustrated. Greg Clark, chairman of the Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee (SITC), said the wider adoption of AI in healthcare would have a "positive impact", but urged policy makers to "consider the risks to safety". He said: "If we're to gain all the advantages, we have to anticipate the risks and put in place measures to safeguard against that." An interim report published by the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee sets out the Committee’s findings from its inquiry so far, and the twelve essential challenges that AI governance must meet if public safety and confidence in AI are to be secured.
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News Article
‘Cost of living crisis’ contributing to stillbirths, research finds
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
The cost of living squeeze is a significant factor in some stillbirths, according to case reviews carried out in one of England’s most deprived areas. The review was undertaken in Bradford last year, and concluded: ”the current financial crisis is impacting on the ability of some women to attend essential antenatal appointments”. Missing these appointments was a factor in a range of maternity safety events, including stillbirths, it said. The researchers are now calling for new national funding to help ensure expectant parents do not miss important appointments because they cannot afford to attend. The research findings include: ‘Did not attend’ rates increased due to lack of funds for transport to antenatal appointments; “Lack of credit on phones prevented communication between women and maternity services, for example, making [them] unable to rearrange scans or appointments”; Wide spread incidence of “digital poverty, [for example] a lady with type 1 [diabetes] was unable to monitor her glycaemic control over night due to only having one phone charger in the house”; and “Families with babies on a neonatal unit going without food in order to finance transport to and from the unit.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 25 August 2023 -
News Article
All GP surgeries in England to have digital phone lines by March 2024
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Patients at all general practices across England will soon benefit from new digital phone lines designed to make booking GP appointments easier. Backed by a £240 million investment, more than 1,000 practices have signed up to make the switch from analogue systems - which can leave patients on hold and struggling to book an appointment - to modern, easy-to-use digital telephones designed to make sure people can receive the care they need when they need it. It is expected every practice in the country will have the new system in place by the end of this financial year, helping put an end to the 8am rush - a key pillar of the Prime Minister’s primary care recovery plan to improve patient access to care. Patients will be able to contact their general practice more easily and quickly - and find out exactly how their request will be handled on the day they call, rather than being told to call back later, as the government and NHS England deliver on the promises made in the primary care recovery plan announced in May. If their need is urgent, they will be assessed and given appointments on the same day. If it is not urgent, appointments should be offered within 2 weeks, or patients will be referred to NHS 111 or a local pharmacy. The upgraded system will bring an end to the engaged tone, see care navigators direct calls to the right professional, and the use of online systems will provide more options and help those who prefer to call to get through. Read press release Source: Department of Health and Social Care, 18 August 2023 -
Content ArticleIn January 2023, NHS England’s Delivery plan for recovering urgent and emergency services committed the health service to ease the growing pressure on hospitals by scaling up the use of ‘virtual wards’. Also known as ‘hospital at home’, virtual wards allow people to receive treatment and care where they live, rather than as a hospital inpatient, while still being in regular contact with health professionals. This article by The Health Foundation looks at how NHS staff and the UK public feel about the use of virtual wards, based on the results of a survey of 7,100 members of the public and 1,251 NHS staff members. The survey aimed to assess how supportive these groups are of virtual wards and what they think is important for making sure they work well.
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Content ArticleIn this blog for the Royal College of Physicians, patient Hayley Hall argues that engaging members of the public in digital transformation will help ensure that changes made bring real benefits not just to the health service also but to patients, carers, family members and communities.
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Content Article
A patient's tales of woe
Clive Flashman posted an article in By patients and public
This blog tells the story of a patient, a relation of Patient Safety Learning's Chief Digital Officer. It explains how the patient was failed by the system, seemingly a system designed to fail when its users need it most. Some of the issues described here are technology-based in nature, but the concepts are easy to grasp. A phrase that another person commented when hearing about this story was "when common sense and compassion are lost, there is no hope left for the NHS". I think we have now entered that territory (sadly). Do feel free to comment or add your own stories below....- Posted
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Content ArticleWales' national policy on patient safety incident reporting and management.
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News Article
Digitising all trusts by 2025 ‘unachievable’ after £700m cut, government admits
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
NHS England’s target for all trusts to have a working electronic patient record (EPR) system by March 2025 is now ‘unachievable’’ and a new date has been set a year later, government has admitted. A new report of the Infrastructure and Projects Authority – the government body which scrutinises and supports major projects – states: “Delivery confidence is [rated] red as a number of NHS trusts are reporting they are unlikely to be able to fully implement an electronic patient record by March 2025.” The document, published quietly last week, downgrades the rating from “amber” to “red” – and also reveals £700m was cut from the programme’s budget last year. The “frontline digitisation” programme was launched by government and NHSE in 2021 with the aim of getting all trusts to a minimum level of capability, including 90% to have an EPR of an acceptable standard by the end of 2023, and 100 per cent by March 2025. But the IPA report states that a revised business case is now being prepared to reflect a new “end date” of March 2026. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 24 July 2023 -
Content ArticleIn this video, Chief Digital Officer Clive Flashman talks about the hub as a patient safety innovation as part of Patient Safety Learning's entry to the Digital Health Hub Foundation Digital Health Awards 2023.
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Community Post
Better use of data for medication safety in hospitals
Kenny Fraser posted a topic in Medicine management
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NHS hospital staff spend countless hours capturing data in electronic prescribing and medicines administration systems. Yet that data remains difficult to access and use to support patient care. This is a tremendous opportunity to improve patient safety, drive efficiencies and save time for frontline staff. I have just published a post about this challenge and Triscribe's solution. I would love to hear any comments or feedback on the topic... How could we use this information better? What are hospitals already doing? Where are the gaps? Thanks- Posted
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Content Article
Better use of data for medication safety in hospitals
Kenny Fraser posted an article in Medicine management
NHS hospital staff spend countless hours capturing data in electronic prescribing and medicines administration systems. Yet that data remains difficult to access and use to support patient care. This is a tremendous opportunity to improve patient safety, drive efficiencies and save time for frontline staff. In this blog, Kenny Fraser, CEO of Triscribe, explains why we need to deliver quick, low-cost improvement using modern, open source software tools and techniques. We don’t need schemes and standards or metrics and quality control. The most important thing is to build software for the needs and priorities of frontline pharmacists, doctors and nurses. -
Content ArticleClive Flashman, Patient Safety Learning's Chief Digital Officer, shares his presentation slides from the Health Plus Care 2022 conference. The presentation slides include basic principles, how to involve the patient and public in design, key issues and Clive's ten top tips for digital health innovators.
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News Article
NHS is ‘tech averse healthcare system’, says ex-government adviser
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
A cut to the NHS tech budget, revealed by HSJ, has been described as “pretty outrageous” by a former government adviser and eminent medical leader. Sir John Bell, an immunologist and geneticist and regius chair of medicine at Oxford University, made the comments in a talk at the Tony Blair Institute’s Future of Britain conference. NHSE’s cut to its tech budget was attributed to having to divert the money to fund spending growth, and some other inflationary costs, without receiving extra from government. At the time, NHSE said the service “remains firmly committed to our digital strategy from supporting hospitals to adopt electronic patient record systems to transforming how patients access NHS services through the NHS App”. But Sir John said: “The NHS is a technology averse healthcare system.” He said NHS spending on medicines was “much lower than peers and if you look at our access to technology – like MRI and CR scanners – we’re right at the back. We just don’t do it.” He added that rapid tech development and adoption was needed particularly to enable mass early diagnosis of diseases, and new treatment therapies. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 18 July 2023 -
Content ArticleThis free eGuide will aid your strategic communications design, and show you how you can develop strategic communications that support and educate populations and patients to make better lifestyle decisions and live healthier lives. In the eGuide, you’ll discover: Why is behavioural change critical for prevention? What are the fundamental elements of strategic healthcare communications. How to develop your vision for patient activation communications to become a reality. The guide is free, but you will need to submit your details download the Apteco guide from their website.
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EventuntilHETT 2023 will explore the systems and infrastructure that underpin and enable a data-driven NHS, supporting the ecosystem to deliver patient outcomes through the meaningful implementation of technology. Register
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Content ArticleThe Digital Medicines Transformation Portfolio aims to use digital technologies to make prescribing, dispensing and administering medicines everywhere in Wales, easier, safer and more efficient for patients and professionals. It brings together the programmes and projects that will deliver a fully digital prescribing approach in all care settings in Wales. This video outlines the different elements of the portfolio that will be introduced across primary and secondary care, including the Shared Medicines Record, which will store information about a patient's medications all in one place.
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News ArticleCheshire and Merseyside won Gold in the ‘Supporting Elective Recovery Through Digital’ category, at the HSJ Digital Awards, alongside technology partner C2-Ai, after transforming how waiting lists are managed with the help of an AI-backed waiting list model. The tool helps surgical teams identify previously hidden high-risk patients, and to make informed decisions on how, when and where to treat patients to achieve the best outcomes. NHS England, who commissioned the project, reported that within six weeks patient waiting lists dropped by nearly 30%, as well as a 66% decrease in intensive care needs for high-risk patients, saved about 2,500 hospital bed-days across 20,000 patients, and cut emergency admissions to the waiting list by 8%. Read full story Source: NHS Cheshire and Merseyside, 3 July 2023
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Content ArticleThis framework sets out what good digital working looks like for care providers and local authorities with responsibility for adult social care in England.
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Content ArticleUsing new technologies in the NHS could bring multiple benefits. They could save healthcare professionals’ time, increase the number of people a skilled professional can support, and enable more sustainable workforce models. At the same time, they can promote safer and more personalised care. The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) have published their latest Collection brings together NIHR research demonstrating how digital technology can improve care while reducing the demands on staff.
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Content ArticleErrors in patient identification have implications for patient care and safety, payment, as well as data sharing and interoperability. Different patient identification techniques ranging from unique patient identifiers and algorithms to hybrid models have been implemented worldwide. However, no current patient identification techniques have resulted in a 100% match rate. This study by Riplinger et al. identified some of the challenges associated with improper patient identification. The literature review showed six common patient identification techniques implemented worldwide ranging from unique patient identifiers, algorithmic approaches, referential matching software, biometrics, radio frequency identification device (RFID) systems, and hybrid models. The review revealed three themes associated with unresolved patient identification: 1) treatment, care delivery, and patient safety errors, 2) cost and resource considerations, and 3) data sharing and interoperability challenges.
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News Article
Tony Blair urges expanded role for private sector as NHS turns 75
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
The NHS must undergo radical change or it will continue to decline and lose public support, Tony Blair has argued on the service’s 75th anniversary. It must embrace a revolution in technology to reshape its relationship with patients and make much more use of private healthcare providers to cut waiting times, the former Labour prime minister says. The prevalence of chronic health conditions, long waiting times, the NHS’s stretched workforce and tight public finances in the years ahead mean the service must transform how it operates, he said. “The NHS now requires fundamental reform or, eventually, support for it will diminish. As in the 1990s, the NHS must either change or decline,” he writes in the foreword to a new report from his Tony Blair Institute thinktank, which sets out ideas for safeguarding the NHS’s future. He adds: “Change is never easy and requires brave political leadership. If we do not act, the NHS will continue down a path of decline, to the detriment of our people and our economy.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 5 July 2023 -
Content ArticleMaking data on medical interventions easier to collect and collate would increase the odds of spotting patterns of harm, according to the panel of a recent HSJ webinar. When Baroness Julia Cumberlege was asked to review the avoidable harm caused by two medicines and one medical device, she encountered no shortage of data. “We found that the NHS is awash with data, but it’s very fractured,” says Baroness Cumberlege, who chaired the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review and now co-chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group which raises awareness of and support for its findings. It was a challenge on which Professor Sir Terence Stephenson had cause to deeply reflect back in 2014. That was the year in which he was asked to chair an independent review of medical devices, following concerns about the safety of metal-on-metal hip replacements and PIP silicone breast implants. “The NHS stepped up to the plate really quickly and said: ‘Even if it’s a private hospital that put this in, we will take it out to protect your safety,’” recalled Sir Terence, now Nuffield professor of child health at Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health and chair of the Health Research Authority for England. “But the big problem was they couldn’t identify who had which implants. No doubt somebody somewhere had written this down with a fountain pen and then someone spilt the tea over it and the unique information was lost.”
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News Article
Smartwatches may provide early Parkinson's diagnosis
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Smartwatches might help diagnose Parkinson's disease up to seven years ahead of symptoms, a study suggests. The UK Dementia Research Institute team at Cardiff University used artificial intelligence to analyse data from 103,712 smartwatch wearers. By tracking their speed of movement over a single week, between 2013 and 2016, they were able to predict which would go on to develop Parkinson's. It is hoped this could ultimately be used as a screening tool. But more studies, comparing these findings with other data gathered around the world, are needed to check how accurate it will be, the researchers say, in the journal Nature Medicine. Read full story Source: BBC News, 3 July 2023
