Secondary Care – HTN Health Tech News https://htn.co.uk Thu, 22 Aug 2024 14:55:19 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8 https://i0.wp.com/htn.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/cropped-HTN-Logo.png?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 Secondary Care – HTN Health Tech News https://htn.co.uk 32 32 124502309 How university-led research is driving the use of AI for diagnosis and screening in conditions including breast cancer and dementia https://htn.co.uk/2023/07/19/how-university-led-research-is-driving-the-use-of-ai-for-diagnosis-and-screening-in-conditions-including-breast-cancer-and-dementia/ Wed, 19 Jul 2023 12:08:10 +0000 https://htn.co.uk/?p=51855

The University of Aberdeen is working with NHS Grampian on AI breast screening technology; University of Sheffield is working on an AI tool to speed up dementia diagnosis; and Newcastle University’s COLO-DETECT study aims to use AI to detect early signs of colon cancer.

The University of Aberdeen recently announced that it was working with NHS Grampian and Kheiron Medical Technologies on an AI breast screening technology which is said to detect abnormalities which traditional screening methods would have missed. To test the solution, 220,000 mammograms from more than 55,000 patients were analysed by the software, named “Mia”, which was found to be successful in identifying interval cancers which would have gone undetected until the women developed symptoms, the researchers said.

According to the research team’s findings, Mia would have suggested recalling 34.1% of the women who went on to develop cancer in between screenings. In the process of testing Mia, the research team also determined the importance of fine-tuning AI tools to suit local populations and conditions, after the solution was initially deemed too sensitive in recalling patients unnecessarily. This led Professor Anderson, Chair in Health Data Science at the University of Aberdeen, to note that “ongoing quality assurance monitoring is essential”.

At the University of Sheffield, researchers have been working on an AI tool which could speed up dementia diagnosis, spotting the early signs of the disease which might warrant referral to a specialist. CognoSpeak uses AI to analyse language and speech patterns in conversations between patients and a virtual agent, and has been found to be “as accurate at predicting Alzheimer’s as the current pen-and-paper-based assessments”.

Accessed through a web browser, the assessment can be carried out from a patient’s home. Whilst early trials have shown that the technology boasts an accuracy of 90% “for distinguishing people with Alzheimer’s from people that are cognitively healthy”, the tool will now be trialled more extensively as researchers look to recruit a further 700 patients from memory clinics across the UK, thanks to an injection of £1.4million in funding from the NIHR.

Elsewhere, Newcastle University has announced the closure of its COLO-DETECT study, “the largest trial of its kind in the world”, which recruited more than 2,000 patients and was found to be capable of analysing data “much quicker than people can”, detecting extra polyps and abnormalities. The University of Warwick has also received £2.3million in funding to develop a screening tool for colon cancer, which will involve data from 10 NHS hospitals across the UK and more than 10,000 biopsy samples, potentially revealing the possibility for AI to transform the diagnosis process for the disease.

Guiding the future development of AI for diagnosis and screening

Last month we wrote about the CDEI’s timely publication of its AI assurance techniques, that stresses the importance of ensuring trustworthiness in AI solutions, providing advice on evaluation and quality checking, as well as good practice guidance.

NICE’s “one-stop-shop for for AI and digital regulations for health and social care” has also been developed in order to provide developers with insight into regulations on AI solutions within the health and care sector, focusing on the safe implementation and use of AI-driven interventions.

In June, the DHSC announced that £21million would be invested in AI technologies. This funding will allow NHS trusts to bid for funding to roll-out available AI solutions quickly, with aim to mitigate some of the pressures on diagnostic services.

NHS England has also been working to help ensure that NHS staff are prepared for the introduction of AI-driven technologies, and to understand what challenges lie ahead for their implementation. In its report titled “Developing healthcare workers’ confidence in artificial intelligence”, it explores how confidence in AI among healthcare workers can be developed through education and training.

]]> 51855 Cambridge University Hospitals highlight AI tool for preparing for scans https://htn.co.uk/2023/07/04/cambridge-university-hospitals-highlight-ai-tool-for-preparing-for-scans/ Tue, 04 Jul 2023 08:12:03 +0000 https://htn.co.uk/?p=51136

Cambridge University Hospitals NHS FT has highlighted the impact of an artificial intelligence tool, developed at Addenbrooke’s, in reducing the amount of preparation time for radiotherapy treatment.

The solution, OSAIRIS, is being used at Addenbrooke’s for prostate and head and neck cancers, and is said to “significantly reduce the amount of time a doctor needs to spend drawing around healthy organs on scans before radiotherapy”.

The tool helps by outlining the organs, known as ‘segmentation’, in order to protect the healthy tissue around the cancer from radiation, the trust added.

Dr Raj Jena, oncologist at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, led the research. Raj said: “OSAIRIS does much of the work in the background so that when the doctor sits down to start planning treatment, most of the heavy lifting is done. We’ve already started to work on a model that works in the chest, so that will work for lung cancer and breast cancer particularly.

“And also, from my perspective as a neuro-oncologist, I’m interested that we’re building the brain model as well so that we’ve got something that works for brain tumours as well.”

The trust added that “it can take a doctor between 20 minutes and three hours to perform this task, per patient” and the “routine task is ideally suited to AI with the oncologist in control, checking every scan after OSAIRIS has done the segmentation”.

A £500,000 grant from the NHS AI Lab was provided to support the team to develop the AI tool, using open-source software from Project InnerEye and data from patients who had previously been treated in the hospital and agreed to contribute to the research.  The tool builds on from the Project InnerEye toolkits, an open-source software.

Dr Raj Jena provides an overview of the project in the video below:

]]> 51136 EPMA goes live at Nottingham University Hospitals https://htn.co.uk/2023/06/23/epma-goes-live-at-nottingham-university-hospitals/ Fri, 23 Jun 2023 13:00:21 +0000 https://htn.co.uk/?p=50739

Nervecentre’s electronic prescribing and medicines administration solution has gone live across Nottingham University Hospitals.

The City Hospital went live with the system in May, across two weekends, and Queen’s Medical Centre moved to the new system earlier this month.

It means the hospitals have moved away from a paper process to the EPMA solution. For the go-live at Queen’s Medical Centre, drug charts covering 14,100 prescriptions for more than 800 patients across 40 wards were transcribed on to the system over two days .

The go-live was received with excitement from the trust and its team, who shared updates on Twitter by the @TeamNUH Twitter account:

Nervecentre is already in use across Nottingham University Hospitals, for functions including checking test results, clinical noting, risk assessments and bed management. The latest addition of EPMA is said to be another step toward granting clinicians access to all of the information they need in one place, through a mobile device.

The trust’s chief digital information officer, Andy Callow, also shared the go-live on Twitter:

To learn more about the EPMA roll-out, please click here.

]]> 50739 East Lancs countdowns to EPR go live this weekend https://htn.co.uk/2023/06/14/east-lancs-countdowns-to-epr-go-live-this-weekend/ Wed, 14 Jun 2023 08:10:15 +0000 https://htn.co.uk/?p=50403

East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust is counting down to going live with its electronic patient record system, due to go live 16-19 June.

The programme at East Lancashire is known as ‘eLancs’, and is designed to improve patient care by replacing paper-based notes and records with digital tools.

Over recent months, the trust has been preparing to go live with its EPR by visiting its hospital sites to demonstrate the system and taking staff through a role-specific 10-week training programme. This has included recruiting 1,000 ambassadors and super users, from a range of job roles and departments.

During May, the trust conducted its full technical and operational dress rehearsal, to test and practice using the system ahead of going live. This included simulating live system use; how the command centre and support desk work; a clinical safety review; testing IT, hardware and infrastructure; and testing business continuity plans. The trust has shared more details on YouTube here.

Mark Hodgson, CEO, commented on the programme: “A huge amount of work has gone in to getting us to this point. I really want to thank all staff that have been involved to date. It’s important to remember that the implementation of the EPR is not just an IT project, but it marks a shift in not only how we work, but how we care for our patients.”

As part of their communications about the project, the trust published a webpage providing an overview of the project and answers to frequently asked questions. Here, the trust notes an ambition for the system to link up with other trusts in the future, stating: “We’re currently working with Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care System and other regional providers in development of a solution that will feed into local trusts. It is important patients can move smoothly between services.”

On access to the system across care settings, the trust added: “The system is a hosted system running through East Lancashire Networks. Any community site that has access to East Lancashire’s network will, with the correct permissions and access be able to log into the system. EMIS will continue to be used in the community.”

The frequently asked questions section goes on to address queries such as ‘Will the IT infrastructure be able to cope?’, ‘Will there be a link to the pharmacy system?’, ‘What are the benefits for GPs?’ and ‘Will hospital safety be affected?’ The FAQs can be viewed here.

The trust also shared a series of videos for staff, including a video on the support that is available during the cut over period:

Good luck from the HTN team.

]]> 50403 NHS England’s monthly operational statistics highlight use of tech https://htn.co.uk/2023/06/09/nhs-englands-monthly-operational-statistics-highlight-use-of-tech/ Fri, 09 Jun 2023 14:44:27 +0000 https://htn.co.uk/?p=50280

NHS England’s latest monthly operational statistics report was published this week, for the month of May, where it reported the third highest total number of emergency department attendees for May at 2.24 million, since records began. Among notable outcomes, waiting times were reduced in spite of high pressures.

The report highlights the use of technology, particularly the empowerment of patients use of tech in the follow-up process, and around 1 million outpatient attendances have been moved or discharged to a patient initiated follow up pathway.

On the pressure, the report notes: “The high demand came after the NHS’s busiest winter ever and in a month which included three bank holiday weekends, where we typically see more people coming forward for urgent and emergency care, and significant disruption from industrial action. These pressures are also seen across primary and community care and mental health settings.”

Despite this pressure, the report claims that the most recent data shows “NHS staff are continuing to make progress on reducing the number of people waiting for care, with the average waiting time from the date of referral falling to 13.8 weeks”.

The report in particular highlights significant progress in the area of elective recovery, in reducing the number of people waiting the longest for care, despite “operating in a very challenging environment with levels of demand continuing to fluctuate and ongoing industrial action having an inevitable impact on planned care”.

This is key to achieving the ambitions set out by the elective recovery plan, which aims to virtually eliminate waits of over 65 weeks by March of 2024. Indeed, the number of people waiting more than 65 weeks has been reduced from a high of 233,051 in June of 2021 to 95,135 in April of 2023.

Waiting times have also fallen for elective treatment, with average waiting times down to 13.8 weeks from 14.6 weeks recorded in January.

As well as working to improve the ways outpatient services are delivered, the report states that these improvements are also thanks to “making greater use of technology”. It highlights the empowerment of patients through increased use of technology in the follow-up process.

“Patients are being given more control to book their follow-up care, as and when they need it. Around 1 million outpatient attendances have been moved or discharged to a patient initiated follow up pathway – providing patients with more choice.”

 

]]> 50280 Transformation and innovation in focus in UCLH’s five year strategy https://htn.co.uk/2023/04/26/transformation-and-innovation-in-focus-in-uclhs-five-year-strategy/ Wed, 26 Apr 2023 09:24:15 +0000 https://htn.co.uk/?p=48240

University College London Hospitals NHS FT has published its strategy for the next five years, with a focus on improving patient services, transformation and innovation.

The new strategy focuses on five themes: to provide high-quality patient care, invest in a diverse workforce, deliver world-leading research and innovation, achieve excellence in education and training, and improve value, productivity, and sustainability.

On patient care, UCLH notes the development of its clinical strategy, where a focus will be placed on assessing clinical services and how to identify improvements needed in safety, clinical outcomes and patient experience.

“We will reduce waiting times for appointments, tests and treatments to deliver national performance targets for planned and emergency care by 2024/25,” the trust notes.

The trust highlights its outpatient transformation strategy published in 2021, that lays out how the trust wants its services to look and operate by 2026, with an aim to keep at least 25 per cent of outpatient consultations via telephone or video. Here, the trust adds an aim for more patients to be given the choice to have a patient-initiated follow-up (representing over five percent of outpatient activity) and an aim to reduce the number of follow-ups, where clinically appropriate.

To identify opportunities to improve waiting times, the trust places focus on the development of new models of outpatient care, with an aim to “improve speed and access to services, which integrate better with local partners, such as GPs, and give patients more control and choice over the service they receive”.

On patient flow, UCLH highlights: “We will focus on the continued delivery of our flow improvement plan including increasing early discharge planning, discharge support and reducing length of stay. This links to wider work on bed capacity and occupancy planning, and staffing and skill-mix planning, across all our acute inpatient areas.”

Population health management is a key focus, using data to target and improve health inequalities, specifically access and delivery within clinical services across the ICS.

To support capacity decisions, the role of technology is highlighted, with aims to make better use of digital to support patients, such as managing appointments, accessing healthcare records and streamlining care, by sharing records with all partners in a care pathway.

Here the trust notes an aim of utilising its patient portal MyCare that will integrate with the NHS app: “We will introduce more functionality, including the ability for our patients to manage their own appointments online. The portal will become our ‘tool of choice’ for electronic communications with patients and we will halve the correspondence we print and post. By 2025, over two-thirds of our patients will have access to MyCare and, for those patients, most of their electronic communication with UCLH will be via the portal.”

On introducing new technologies, the trust adds a need to “develop a robust evaluation process – this will ensure that, in the longer term, the improvements make a safe and positive difference to the way we work”.

The strategy also places focus upon investing in the workforce. The trust emphasises a need for succession planning for future leaders, the opportunity to share learnings, and implement new ways of working to reduce “inefficiencies in the way we work across UCLH”. Here the trust highlights to transform administrative processes, support remote working and deliver a cost saving of £28.3m over 10 years from the release of office-based estate.

The trust’s non-clinical transformation programme aims to make it easier for staff to manage workloads and reduce duplication; it notes an aim to implement a single view of all the tasks within the responsibility of the administration teams and adds: “By the end of 2023, new standard operating procedures for administration will be rolled out. By March 2025 we will have digitised between three and five core administration processes, using robotic process automation, or direct systems integration, removing the burden of repetitive tasks.”

The strategy moves on to research and innovation, stating: “As new ideas for adoption and innovation are developed, these will be channelled through different routes for review, support and potential funding. This includes the support of the commercial team, who will establish a ‘dragon’s den’ process to identify existing projects or new ideas that could be developed for commercialisation This will help us to learn from unsuccessful schemes and further drive innovation and investment as part of a continuous innovation process.”

Commenting on the strategy, David Probert, UCLH chief executive, states: “We have all faced many challenges over the past few years, both in the NHS and wider society. Now is a good time to not only recognise these challenges, but also celebrate UCLH’s strengths and look to a future where we continue to deliver top-quality patient care, excellent education and world-class research.”

The trust’s specific digital strategy will be published this year. Click here to read the full strategy.

]]> 48240 West London NHS highlights innovation and population health management in five-year strategy https://htn.co.uk/2023/04/18/west-london-nhs-highlights-innovation-and-population-health-management-in-5-year-strategy/ Tue, 18 Apr 2023 10:50:50 +0000 https://htn.co.uk/?p=48059

North West London NHS Trust has published its five-year strategy this month, developed to respond to the changing needs of its local community, with a “major focus on tackling local health inequalities”.

It sets out five strategic priorities, to focus on collaboration and system leadership; population health, inequalities and co-production; putting people first; innovation in service development and delivery; and aiming for outstanding.

Carolyn Regan, chief executive, opens the strategy: “Our next chapter will require agility, tenacity for innovation and clear-sighted ambition in order to improve the care and support to service users and enhance the ways in which we interact with our wider communities.”

The strategy follows a recent survey with stakeholders, where the findings identified the need to improve access, increase the emphasis on community-based care, support clinical collaboration and innovation, develop and monitor meaningful metrics, be data-driven and evidence led, and further progress of the integration of physical and mental health.

It emphasises the priority for innovation in service development and delivery, noting the need to “embed a culture which promotes and supports innovation and continuous improvement”.

For fostering innovation, the trust outlines the need to develop new and innovative ways of working, embed the principles of continuous quality improvement, and establish the trust’s profile as a leader in research and innovation. Some of the priorities here are to improve the use of data, and its digital and informatics infrastructure and capacity.

As part of this, there is focus to encourage staff to explore improvements, as well as harnessing digital solutions and technology to improve choice, access and quality of the care. The strategy outlines to standardise the use of easily accessible data and dashboards to support improvement of services, embed a systematic approach to innovation, and measure success by new innovations and technologies adopted.

The strategy also notes the need for the development and implementation of provider collaboratives and other new models of care. Here, it highlights necessity for “improved, timely and equitable access to our services for all our diverse communities” and “providing care close to home”.

Population health management is a key theme throughout, with the use of data, clinical and user insight to target “resources where they will have the most impact” highlighted. In addition, emphasis is placed upon working with system partners to improve system efficiencies and productivity, in addition to co-producing and delivering “high-quality, responsive care, tackling inequalities and focusing on the needs of our vulnerable and at-risk communities”.

The trust notes its next steps to develop an implementation plan and prioritisation framework, develop clear outcome measures, and a monitoring and reporting framework.

To view the strategy, visit the trust’s website here. 
]]> 48059 Latest phase of University Hospitals of Leicester EPR programme goes live https://htn.co.uk/2023/04/04/university-hospitals-of-leicester-goes-live-with-order-comms/ Tue, 04 Apr 2023 13:26:45 +0000 https://htn.co.uk/?p=47808

University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust has deployed Nervecentre’s order comms solution across its three hospitals.

Forming part of the trust’s progressive electronic patient record roll-out, the solution is now live supporting clinical workflow and processes, as part of the Nervecentre EPR.

The deployment adds to a number of Nervecentre modules live at the trust, including in its emergency department, EPMA, infection control, patient flow and live flow modules. The company added that “order comms integration with EPMA has seen instant patient safety results from being able to view blood test results and drug charts when prescribing”.

Commenting on the deployment, Andy Carruthers, chief information officer at UHL, said: “The addition of diagnostic requesting and results as part of our EPR partnership with Nervecentre is another leap forward in our digital maturity.

“Enabling our clinicians to request tests on their mobile devices and to triangulate results, medicines, allergies and other information in one place is already delivering significant benefits in terms of time, efficiency and patient safety.”

Andy added that staff have “enthusiastically adopted the new capabilities” and there were “very few issues which is testament to the usability of the system”.

Paul Volkaerts, CEO at Nervecentre, added: “It’s great to see UHL deploy order comms so easily and ‘pain-free’. This reinforces the Nervecentre EPR strategy to deliver value faster, more efficiently and with minimal stress to hospital staff.”

The next steps in the programme will see the deployment of the Nervecentre PAS later this year.

]]> 47808 The Royal Marsden goes live with EPR https://htn.co.uk/2023/03/20/the-royal-marsden-goes-live-with-epr/ Mon, 20 Mar 2023 14:33:17 +0000 https://htn.co.uk/?p=47130

The Royal Marsden NHS FT has gone live with Connect, its electronic patient record.

Described as “the largest and most important digital transformation programme in The Royal Marsden’s history”, the Epic electronic health record went live at 4:00pm, 17 March. The trust also introduced a patient app and website called MyMarsden.

David Newey, Chief Information Officer at The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, commented on the go live on Twitter, stating: “Today was a good day! Of all the go lives I’ve been party to, this was the smoothest, in no small part to an amazing team, trust and our supplier community.”

Over the weekend, news of the system going live was shared across social media:

As part of the go-live, the trust highlighted to patients: “As we move from one system to the other, there will be more staff on the wards than usual. This includes higher numbers of Royal Marsden staff as well as staff from other UK and international hospitals. These staff are experts on the new computer system and will be able to help us as we get used to using Connect. These support staff can be identified by their pink or green “Connect” branded T shirts.”

The communication added that patients may notice staff on new devices, as well as highlighting that there could be some delays to services.

To keep up-to-date with the programme, view the Connect Twitter account here.

]]> 47130 Date set for Health and Social Care Northern Ireland EPR go-live https://htn.co.uk/2023/02/20/date-set-for-health-and-social-care-northern-ireland-epr-go-live/ Mon, 20 Feb 2023 09:00:48 +0000 https://htn.co.uk/?p=46199

The first trust as part of the Health and Social Care Northern Ireland ‘Encompass’ programme is set to go live on 9 November 2023.

The £300m 10-year programme is to deliver a new electronic patient record for five trusts across Northern Ireland.

South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust will be the first trust to go live with Encompass later this year. It is then planned for other trusts to follow during 2024/25.

The programme has to date spent £113.8m, with a plan to spend a further £163.9m over the next five years.

Roisin Coulter, chief executive, South Eastern Trust, said: “I am delighted that the South Eastern Trust will lead the way as the journey begins to transform the way we deliver health and social care in Northern Ireland.

“Encompass will introduce a digital integrated care record for everyone in the region. It will be our new electronic patient record which is powered by Epic, a proven global technology.

“This is a momentous opportunity that will enable us to replace outdated systems. Having one health record will reduce the need for information to be stored across multiple, ageing systems and minimise paper records.

“I am really excited to see how the introduction of encompass, with the new patient portal, will change the working lives of our staff and the care given to our community.”

Dan West, chief digital information officer at the Department of Health, added: “The roll out of encompass across the whole of Northern Ireland will be a critical enabler of the wider transformation programme for health and social care. While it is seen as a technology programme by some – it is really about people: our staff and people in Northern Ireland.

“It will support with work on things like waiting times; actions around Mental Health; reconfiguration and rebuilding of hospital services; the development of day case elective centres; and delivery of transformed cancer services. It will help to digitise some aspects of social care and it will support community engagement and co-design.”

In July 2022, HTN explored the Northern Ireland digital strategy for 2022-2030. The digital strategy for the next eight years shared their vision of “making lives better for the people of Northern Ireland, using digital to transform the way we deliver health, care and wellbeing services.”

The strategy includes four foundation enablers that are “critical components” of the strategy and the plan to deliver it: digital leadership and culture, digital talent, management and governance, and infrastructure and programmes. These four enablers “outline the priority areas that we will focus on building over the lifetime of this digital strategy,” it states.

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