News in brief
Five million patients to benefit from new era of patient care: NHS England has chosen the first 29 ‘vanguard’ geographies that will take the national lead on transforming care for patients across England. These were chosen from 269 groups of nurses, doctors and other health and social care staff who put forward their ideas for how they want to redesign care in their areas. From April, the vanguards will develop local health and care services to keep people well, and bring home care, mental health and community nursing, GP services and hospitals together for the first time since 1948. It is estimated more than five million patients will benefit, just from this first wave. Simon Stevens, chief executive of NHS England, said: “The NHS now has its own long term plan, backed by just about everybody, and today we’re firing the starting gun. Instead of the usual top-down administrative tinkering, we’re backing radical care redesign by frontline nurses, doctors and other staff – in partnership with their patients and local communities.”
Nursing tech fund 2 awards announced: Electronic observations and mobile access projects are the big winners from the second round of NHS England’s Nursing Technology Fund, with 62 organisations splitting £35m in funding, reported eHealth Insider. NHS England has also suggested that it may be able to hand out further awards as a result of savings from procurement discussions with suppliers. It named the successful awards this week, with electronic observations projects winning 20 projects worth £14.9m between them. Mobile access to digital care records across the community also appears to be a high-priority area, with £7.2m split between 14 projects, while 11 projects for the digital capture of clinical data at the point of care have shared £7.1m in funding. NHS England said it had “pursued a number of opportunities to support [sic] local providers achieve ‘value for money’ in their procurement activity”, allowing it to stretch the funding further and consider further awards in 2015-16.
Review into medical innovation and technology: The ‘Innovative Medicines and Medical Technology Review’ will improve the speed at which medical innovations such as precision medicines, digital devices, apps, diagnostics and new therapeutic technologies get to patients and their families, reported Gov.UK. The review will be led by Sir Hugh Taylor, Chair of Guy’s and St. Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. He will be supported by an expert advisory group headed by Professor Sir John Bell, Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford University. The review is supported by the Wellcome Trust. The aim of the review is to ensure that the UK is the fastest place in the world for the design, development and widespread adoption of medical innovations. This will help stimulate new investment, jobs and economic growth to support a stronger NHS. The review’s terms of reference show how it will explore opportunities to get innovative medicines, devices and diagnostics from the lab to NHS patients as quickly and safely as possible.
Hospitals’ licences could be revoked if they fail to invest in IT: Hospitals that fail to use IT effectively could have their licences ‘brought into question’ under new NHS England guidelines, reported ComputerWorldUK. “Digital maturity” will become one of the key criteria taken into consideration by the Care Quality Commission as part of its inspection regime from March 2016. Making the best use of IT, digital data and services is becoming increasingly important in the NHS. A recent report by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) found IT adoption was linked to mortality, patient and staff satisfaction, average lengths of stay and short-term admissions. NHS England is planning to set up a ‘Digital Maturity Index’ to rank hospitals by how effectively they use IT, digital data and services. The index will be published on the NHS Choices website from October 2015.
Code4Health courses underway: The first courses of NHS England’s Code4Health programme have started running in Bradford, with participating clinicians saying they are keen to make the most of what they have learned. The revived programme was launched last week at eHealth Week with a focus on narrowing the gap between clinicians and IT departments. Richard Jefferson, NHS England’s head of business systems, said the programme will include a range of Code4Health courses, starting with sessions on ‘app-building in a day’ and ‘data in a day’, to help clinicians better understand the work that is required to design services for them. One of the first courses took place at Bradford University this week, with course provider LiveCode educating clinicians on how to develop their own apps. Course participant Dr Asim Suleman, a GP partner at the Mayfield Medical Centre in Bradford, told eHealth Insider that news of the Code4Health course “immediately started ticking some boxes” in terms of the practice’s plans to improve its use of technology. “We’ve started looking at virtual surgeries and new ways of working, innovative ways of working to reduce access issues, so if we can use technology in that it would be fantastic.”
NHS chief details radical plans to end ‘like it or lump it’ care: 10,000 patients will be given more control of how their share of the health and social care budget is spent under new government plans, reported The Telegraph. The head of the NHS, Simon Stevens pledged to bring an end to “like it or lump it” services, ahead of a series of plans to improve the help given to patients outside hospitals and tackle the burden of lifestyle diseases. Pilots announced in eight areas of the country mean people with serious health conditions will be given a type of “personal budget,” to give them more say over how the state funding on them is spent. Patients will be able to choose to have a regular paid carer instead of being forced into residential care, or to find particular activities such as physiotherapy and hydrotherapy which help their needs best.
Scottish data share plan survives vote: The Scottish government has voted in favour of plans to share data from a central NHS database with other public bodies reported eHealth Insider. The SNP said it wants to share non-medical data from the NHS central register, which holds details of everyone born or registered with a GP in Scotland, with the HMRC and other public bodies. This is mainly in order to keep track of taxpayers from April 2016, when the country is set to implement its own rate of income tax. However, critics – including all the other major political parties in Scotland – have criticised the plans, which would also make the data available to 120 public bodies, including Glasgow Airport, Scottish Canals, Quality Meat Scotland and the Royal Botanical Gardens. The vote was called by Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie who described the SNP’s plan as creating a “super ID database”.
End ‘fixation’ with A&E waiting time target, say experts: The four-hour A&E waiting time target should be downgraded as it is distorting priorities, experts say. The call by the Nuffield Trust comes as one of the most difficult winters for years is coming to an end with all four parts of the UK missing the target, reported the BBC. The think tank said the “fixation” meant other bottlenecks, such as ambulance delays and waits for beds, were not getting enough attention. It said using a range of measures would give a more “balanced” picture. The Nuffield Trust suggested long waits for beds, ambulance delays, the numbers leaving A&E without being seen and patient satisfaction surveys could also be used to assess performance. It said waiting times for treatments would still be measured as part of this more comprehensive monitoring regime.
NHS calculator which predicts when you might suffer heart attack launched: The NHS has launched a new online app that predicts your chances of a heart attack. The online tool guides individuals through a range of lifestyle questions, such as age, height, weight, smoking history, and family and personal medical history, in order to determine their chances of a heart attack. Medical professionals hope the calculator, developed with NHS Choices, Public Heath England and the British Heart Foundation, will become a useful method to prompt individuals into changing unhealthy lifestyles by highlighting how many years they have before a heart attack. Professor John Deanfield, an NHS cardiologist who helped develop the app, told the Telegraph it could be a “real wake-up call” for people to change their lifestyles. “It can be that all important nudge to take action and make lifestyle changes to improve your heart health.”
Apple Watch is expensive, but it ‘can transform the healthcare sector’: Apple has revealed the release date and price points for its Apple Watch, reported Computing. Costing £299 for the basic model with prices rising as high as £13,500, the watch will go on sale on 24 April 2015. Various customisable design options and changeable magnetic straps will also be a mainstay of Apple’s approach to marketing the wearable. The device includes a range of personal exercise and medical features and an integrated “Taptic” feedback engine, which allows apps to gently vibrate the watch on the wrist to offer alerts and instructions. Freddie McMahon, director research and innovation at big data firm Anomaly42, who believes that the watch could make serious waves in the medical community, said: “Apple is acutely aware that the answers to some of the world’s most serious diseases will be found not by researchers alone – but by the data being emitted from phones in our pockets and watches on our wrists. In the UK, the data that can be gathered in this way has the potential to lift a huge burden on the NHS, by injecting radical efficiency.”
First patients diagnosed through genome project: Three men from two families in the north east have become the first to be diagnosed with rare diseases after volunteering to have their genetic codes mapped through pioneering DNA research, reported National Health Executive. After taking part in the 100,000 Genomes Project at Newcastle University’s Biomedical Research Centre, the families will now receive effective, personalised treatment. It is also hoped this will help prevent future generations who share their DNA from suffering a life of uncertainty about similar symptoms. One of the three, Leslie Hedley, 57, from Fenham, Newcastle, has had a life-long history of high blood pressure and kidney failure. Hedley has undergone a second kidney transplant after the first failed, and his father, brother and uncle all died from the same condition. However, the genome scientists, as part of the £300 million project, uncovered the genetic flaw responsible after scouring his DNA. Professor Patrick Chinnery, director of the Institute of Genetic Medicine at Newcastle University, said: “Patients of Newcastle Hospitals are the first to receive a diagnosis through whole genome sequencing by Genomics England, leading to changes in the treatment the NHS can offer their families.”
Are trusts putting NHS data at risk by ignoring need for bring your own device (BYOD) policies: Two-thirds of NHS trusts are risking data breaches because they lack a policy to manage their employees’ personal devices, reports IT Pro. One third (34%) of trusts have measures in place to govern what devices staff can bring into work, and what they can do with them, according to a Freedom of Information (FoI) request sent to 35 trusts. Those without a BYOD policy have sacrificed visibility into what devices are accessing their networks, claimed virtualisation firm Citrix, which submitted the FoI. More than half the trusts – 18 out of 35 – were unaware whether personal devices were being used for work purposes. A Citrix statement read: “This lack of visibility means that NHS trusts could be vulnerable to data breaches if a personal device is being used without adequate protection. The ability for employees to securely access trust data on the device of their choice has the potential to improve productivity and potentially contribute to a reduction in IT overhead cost. However, the FoI results reveal that many NHS trusts are struggling to seize this opportunity, with the delay in uptake also potentially having a significant effect on ensuring security requirements are met.”
NHS England calling SMEs to Health Datapalooza: NHS England and UKTI are calling out to dynamic UK producers of software and clinical apps to be part of a trade mission, to the Health Datapalooza event in Washington DC from 31 May – 3 June 2015. Interested companies should register by next Friday, 20 March, for a chance to benefit from privileged opportunities including an invitation to attend the British Embassy, a Health Datapalooza reception, a private, corporate networking event with potential US investors and a digital health event at the Veteran’s Association. To support the chosen suppliers in bringing these opportunities to fruition, practical advice will be provided before the event on positioning companies to stateside VCs as well as access to a UK branded exhibition area for networking and marketing collateral and the inclusion of their company profile in the UK delegation brochure. The cost of the trade mission will be approximately £1,000 per organisation (for one person), excluding flights and accommodation. To express interest in joining this delegation or for further information on the selection process, please visit the Eventbrite page.
EHI Awards 2015 open for entries: Entries are now open for the EHI Awards 2015 which recognise the work being done by healthcare IT teams across the UK. The winners will be announced on Thursday 1 October at a black-tie dinner at the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge hotel. For the first time, the awards are being run by Informa, whose head of events, Neil Hadland, said: “The EHI Awards are an established part of the healthcare IT year, so we are delighted to be able to announce that they are open for entries. The 12 categories in this year’s awards give suppliers and trusts the chance to show how they are using IT to tackle the big issues in healthcare, from patient safety to efficiency and from supporting integrated care to opening up new services to patients.” Entries will be open for the next two months, and must be received by 4pm on 8 May.
Opinion:
True integration must bridge the divide between services and the people they serve
As Integrated Personal Commissioning is launched, Luke O’Shea, NHS England’s head of patient participation, explains how it can help save lives.
“Today marks the start of a radical integration programme, the first of its kind in the world, called Integrated Personal Commissioning (IPC). The most radical part of IPC isn’t the integration of health and social care, or the entirely new financial incentives, or the central role of the voluntary sector. These elements of the programme are vital, but are being tried at scale in programmes around the world. The really radical part, the controversial part, the uncomfortable part, is to hand real power over to people and, if they choose to take it, to allow them to spend their own budgets according to their needs and priorities – ‘what matters most’.
“Growing evidence shows that a failure to involve people in their care and treatment leads to far poorer outcomes and higher cost. Services themselves have a bias towards the status quo, even when the needs of the population change beyond recognition. And the population is changing – with dramatically rising numbers of people with multiple long-term conditions – so a very different health and care system is needed.
“If we want to create a safe, sustainable and relevant 21st century health and care system, we will need to involve patients in their care and share power with them as equal partners.
“As the IPC programme begins, we face some big challenges and we will certainly make mistakes. But we have a duty to raise our aspirations and try to make this work. After all, there are many thousands of people waiting for us to start their lives.”
Will the Apple watch & ResearchKit transform healthcare?
Hans van ‘t Riet, business transformation manager at Philips, takes a look at two new health technologies and questions the impact on consumers.
On Apple’s new wearable technology, van ‘t Riet says: “As a real health care device it falls short. It does not detect your stress level, it doesn’t have a built-in blood-pressure monitor. Or a glucose tracker. Or a pulse oximeter. In fact it doesn’t have any of those cutting-edge health sensors. Also it does not have the accuracy in measuring what you would require for tracking your health on a continuous basis, which is hampered by the limited battery life. But it does push you to move and exercise more, which is key to a healthier lifestyle.”
ResearchKit is a new iOS software framework that lets people volunteer to join medical research studies, which van ‘t Riet describes as an “interesting platform for research institutions. “One caveat however is of course the privacy. Since medical data is obviously sensitive, Apple won’t see anything you put into ResearchKit apps and you can give permission for how data is used by researchers. However, data shared with an app or wearable device aren’t typically protected by federal medical privacy laws the way information shared with a doctor is. They can be sold, shared and stored in various ways depending on a company’s privacy policy. If Apple is serious, it will need to prepare for the higher scrutiny it will receive for handling health data.”
Van ‘t Riet concludes that both technologies are not yet ready to transform healthcare but says Apple has resources to do big things: “They started with the iPods but created out of this over time one of the strongest bigger multimedia ecosystems. They currently are missing some critical pieces in the bigger picture, such as the patient data, diagnostic information, medicine and treatment information and how to knit these all together to come to better clinical outcomes, but they have the resources to do new things”.
What population health means to the NHS
Simon Stevens’ Five Year Forward View is giving the NHS a license to innovate and could see a rapid shift in health and care from understanding populations to understanding the individuals that make them up, argues Wayne Parslow.
Writing in The Information Daily, the MedeAnalytics general manager for EMEA, says that population health management would allow health and care professionals to understand the total cost of every individual in a community, their health priorities and targets, as well as their outcomes and experiences. It is about understanding at the locality level and a patient level.
“Regions and cities have been able to measure the distribution of measles, for example, in their particular area for many years,” says Parslow. “But by organisations taking charge for particular cohorts and building patient-centred information architectures, we will be able to identify details about all the patients who have had measles in that area and describe what happened before; their antecedents.
“We will be able to understand the consequences and outcomes of their measles treatments with a much higher degree of granularity and what kind of health resources were necessary to achieve their outcomes.
“The ability to describe at population level and patient level means a shift towards patient-centred care, rather than models based around the organisations that provide specific aspects of it.”
He concludes that many of the new models of care outlined in the Five Year Forward View that could lead to this shift are very similar to models and challenges seen elsewhere in the world, including the US, where accountable care organisations already exist. Lessons must be shared, says Parslow.
Blog
How do we prepare for the unknown? In this week’s blog Gregor MacKenzie reflects on where the industry has been in the past before looking forward to the future of web design and the Internet of Things.
