It’s often said that the National Health Service is the closest thing Britain has to a unifying religion. If that is the case, then the faith of the population is being tested like never before,

With budgets already stretched before the COVID pandemic, additional cost pressures since heaped on health boards across the country by double-digit inflation have brought the NHS closer to breaking point than at any time in its history.

Every passing day seems to bring bleaker news for the beleaguered service, with a seemingly endless roll call of damning statistics and publication of official reports charting yet higher levels of institutional failure. 

If anything, the relentless flow of anecdotes of patient betrayal, breathlessly reported in the pages of the local press, is more shocking.

In the past few weeks we learned that four patients had waited more than 20 hours in the back of ambulances outside Royal Shrewsbury Hospital in England; that GPs in Peterborough are now responsible for the care of more than 2,000 patients each; and that Stockport NHS Foundation Trust is offering food bank vouchers to hospital workers struggling to get by on poverty wages. 

In the same week, a British Medical Association (BMA) survey found that 44% of senior doctors are planning to leave their roles “in some capacity” over the next 12 months, while the Care Quality Commission (CQC) reported 132,000 NHS and 165,000 social care vacancies, meaning a workforce the size of the population of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne is needed to fix the logjam. 

Meanwhile, the average wait for category two, 999 calls for an ambulance — including for chest pains and strokes — in England and Wales is now 60 minutes, compared with a target of 18 minutes. And in Scotland, throughout August, one in ten operations was canceled due to a lack of resources.

Traditionally, the response of politicians to complaints of a ‘crisis’ in the NHS has been to throw more money at it, and right now there’s no money to spare.

While both Conservative and Labour governments have previously toyed with reform, none has dared challenge the universally free, taxpayer-funded model upon which the health service was founded – until now. 

This week it was reported that NHS chief executives in Scotland – one of four autonomous health service areas in the UK – have discussed abandoning its founding principles by having wealthier patients pay for treatment.

The prospect of the first ‘two-tier’ health service in the UK since its founding in 1948 is raised in draft minutes of a meeting of NHS Scotland health board leaders in September. They also discussed the possibility of curtailing some free prescriptions.

While Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s Health Secretary, sought to play down the reports – insisting NHS Scotland would stay publicly owned and operated and free at the point of delivery – the reports represent something of a watershed.

Yousaf’s comments were only to be expected. If there is a single, immutable reality of British political life it is that the NHS is an untouchable shibboleth, and any party that says otherwise risks courting electoral oblivion.

Even if there was a prime minister mad, or drunk, enough to suggest privatizing the service, they would surpass the ends of the earth several times over before finding a private operator madder, or drunker, enough to take on the job.

Yet, there is a dynamic to the latest spot in which the NHS finds itself, which appears materially different to anything in the past. Again, you need only scroll through some of the local press articles to discover that waits are longer, levels of basic care poorer and patient experiences grimmer than ever before.

Figures published by NHS Wales last week revealed more than 60,000 patients are waiting more than two years for treatment. Ian Hembrow, 53, from Maesteg, in Bridgend was told the waiting list for his urgent hip operation was four-and-a -half-years.

In Bonhill, West Dunbartonshire, 69-year-old grandmother Mary Travis has already lived in crippling pain for more than two years, waiting for a back operation to straighten her twisted spine.  Earlier this month she was told that, despite being at the top of a waiting list, she could face a further, two-year wait. 

The NHS has endured because there is an almost spiritual belief in its universality. People of all classes and backgrounds accept the same level of treatment as a right and consequence of being British. 

Those principles have survived because NHS care, as well as being universal, was also universally excellent. That can no longer be said to be the case. The withholding of treatment for years is worse than receiving poor treatment and those who can afford to pay privately for better service will inevitably opt to do so.

The most compelling argument against privatizing the NHS has always been that the provision of healthcare should not be left to the vagaries of market forces. The irony of the current crisis is that those very market forces may now compel its demise. 

No matter how strongly Britons support the NHS, few will be prepared to wait months or years to have an ingrowing toenail treated or a cyst removed if they can have it done privately the following week for a few hundred pounds.

And while we may be happy and willing to pay European levels of taxes in return for a European-style health service, we’re unlikely to do the same for a US-style system.

With the growing development of robotics and telemedicine, as well as an expansion of over-the-counter diagnostics, more people are now seeking remedies, for a greater range of treatments, from their local chemist or from a private therapist or practitioner.

By spending a small amount each month, they can have more or less unlimited telephone or video access to a private GP. 

More is being done online than was the case a few years ago. Much of it remains minor, but the direction of travel is such that, before long, more serious illnesses will be diagnosed remotely and by high street providers. 

If patients can be diagnosed with prostate or breast cancer sooner and treated more effectively, then the way in which the health service is configured and funded will no longer be as important.

We may end up with something approaching the German health service model where a private service handles minor and routine complaints, while accidents and serious illnesses are treated by a publicly funded service, similar to the NHS, which is free at the point of delivery.

It’s unlikely the NHS will ever be wholly privatized, but we could see – slowly and over time – some of its more routine functions being taken over by private companies. 

Even the most traditional religions are forced to adapt and evolve to remain relevant and the NHS is no different. How it responds to the current crisis will determine its role in treating the next generations of patients and whether they will hold it with the same reverence for another 70 years.

About Ivor Campbell

Ivor Campbell is the CEO of Snedden Campbell, a UK-based recruitment agency for the global medical technology industry. IvorIvor has been in a candidate search for more than 30 years. Prior to launching Snedden Campbell, in 2001, he held senior roles for some of the UK’s biggest recruitment companies. Fed up with men in grey suits, pointless KPIs and sharp practice, he decided to launch a new kind of retained medical technology search consultancy that would bring approachability to headhunting, where clients and candidates would be treated equally, and where nobody ever said ‘touching base’. He now spends his time meeting clients and delivering on projects around the UK, Europe and worldwide.

What You Should Know:

– London-headquartered digital health startup, Limbic, has announced that its psychological assessment tool, Limbic Access, has achieved Class IIa UKCA medical device certification – making it the first and only AI mental health chatbot in the world to earn this status for its clinical effectiveness, safety and risk management.

– The certification confirms that its mental health e-triage chatbot, which is able to predict mental health disorders with an accuracy rate of 93%, can be safely incorporated into the psychological therapy pathway to support patient self-referral – driving significant efficiencies to support overstretched clinicians and improving patient outcomes. 

Health tech start-up achieves world-first certification for AI mental health chatbot that diagnoses disorders with 93% accuracy

It comes as NHS Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) services are experiencing significant capacity challenges in the face of record demand – with latest data showing a 21.5% increase in people accessing NHS talking therapies services over the last year.

130,000 NHS patients have so far accessed psychological therapy using Limbic’s AI mental health chatbot, making it the most widely used solution of its kind in the NHS. UKCA auditors, SGS, reviewed clinical evidence generated from more than 60,000 referrals and found that, when compared with standard referral methods such as telephone calls and online forms,

Limbic Access delivered:

1. 53% improvement in recovery rates 

2. 45% fewer changes in treatment, due to increased triage accuracy

3. 23.5% reduction in assessment time – a saving of 12.7 minutes per referral 

4. 18% reduction in treatment dropouts

5. 13% reduction in wait time for assessment 

6. 5% shorter wait time for treatment 

Limbic Access is already working with 25% of NHS IAPTs to augment their therapy process and, to date, it is estimated to have saved IAPT services in England more than 30,000 clinical hours. At a time when the NHS is massively overburdened – latest data shows a 16.2% increase in the number of people in contact with NHS mental health services over the last 12 months – this is critical time released for staff. 

Through Limbic Access and its sister product, Limbic Care – designed to provide personalised support and remote monitoring for patients in treatment – the rapidly growing tech company has created an end-to-end solution for talk therapy that’s designed to augment psychological therapy from start to finish.

As well as being the only Class IIa UKCA marked psychological assessment tool, Limbic Access was awarded the highest score of any level 4 mental health app by ORCHA, the UK’s leading healthcare app evaluation organisation. It is currently the only mental health e-triage chatbot to have been through ORCHA’s rigorous review process.

“This is a landmark moment for mental healthcare, as it provides strong evidence that our psychological assessment software – the first in the world to gain this level of certification – is a safe and clinically effective way to augment the therapy process within mental health services at a time when such support has never been more needed,” said Dr Ross Harper, co-founder and CEO of Limbic. 

What You Should Know:

– MEDITECH UK has announced they’ve chosen CloudWave’s OpSus Cloud Services to power its MEDITECH Expanse EPR (Electronic Patient Record) and MEDITECH Cloud Hosted offering to East Cheshire NHS Trust and Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. The United Kingdom public-sector trusts are part of the National Health Service (NHS). They will be working with CloudWave and MEDITECH to deploy a cloud-based electronic health record (EHR) solution customized for a population of more than 550,000 patients across the UK.

– MEDITECH and CloudWave’s collaborative design for an international MEDITECH Cloud Hosted EPR system provides a cost-effective and scalable way for hospitals to access the Expanse EPR. 

– This partnership will enable East and Mid Cheshire to deliver the MEDITECH Expanse EPR leveraging trusted resources in the public cloud, backed with the delivery expertise, security, management, and depth of support from CloudWave. 

What You Should Know:

– A consortium of 10 National Health Service Trusts — the publicly funded healthcare system in England — is now deploying the MONAI-based AIDE platform across four of its hospitals, providing artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled disease-detection tools to healthcare professionals serving 5 million patients a year. 

– AIDE, short for AI Deployment Engine, is expected to be rolled out next year across 11 NHS hospitals serving 18 million patients, bringing AI capabilities to clinicians. It’s built on MONAI, an open-source medical imaging AI framework co-developed by NVIDIA and the AI Centre, which allows AI applications to interface with hospital systems. 

AI-Driven Healthcare Platforms

Introduced in 2019, MONAI is reducing the complexity of medical workflows from R&D to the clinic. It allows developers to easily build and deploy AI applications, resulting in a model ready for clinical integration, and making it easier to interpret medical exams and unlock new levels of knowledge about patients.

MONAI provides deep learning infrastructure and workflows optimized for medical imaging. MONAI, with more than 650,000 downloads, is used by leading healthcare institutions Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital and King’s College Hospital in the U.K., for its ability to harness the power and potential of medical imaging data to simplify and streamline the process for building AI models. “Across the healthcare ecosystem, researchers, hospitals and startups are realizing the power of incorporating a streamlined AI pipeline into their work,” said Haris Shuaib, AI transformation lead at the AI Centre. “The open-source MONAI ecosystem is standardizing hundreds of AI algorithms for maximum interoperability and impact, enabling their deployment in just a few weeks instead of three-to-six months.”Built in collaboration with the AI Centre for Value-Based Healthcare — a consortium of universities, hospitals and industry partners led by King’s College London and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust — AIDE brings the capabilities of AI to clinicians. This solution equips clinicians with improved information about patients, making healthcare data more accessible and interoperable, in order to improve patient care.

AIDE, short for AI Deployment Engine, is expected to be rolled out next year across 11 NHS hospitals serving 18 million patients, bringing AI capabilities to clinicians. It’s built on MONAI, an open-source medical imaging AI framework co-developed by NVIDIA and the AI Centre, which allows AI applications to interface with hospital systems. 

Together, MONAI and AIDE enable safe and effective validation, deployment and evaluation of medical imaging AI models, which the NHS will apply in diagnosing and treating cancers, stroke, dementia and other conditions. The platform is being deployed at the following facilities: Guy’s and St Thomas’s, King’s College Hospital, East Kent Hospital University and University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trusts.

“Deployment of this infrastructure for clinical AI tools is a hugely exciting step in integrating AI into healthcare services,” said James Teo, professor of neurology and data science at King’s College Hospital NHS. “These platforms will provide a scalable way for clinicians to deploy healthcare AI tools to support decision-making to improve the speed and precision of patient care. This is the start of a digital transformation journey with strong, safe and open foundations.” 

The AI Center has already developed algorithms to improve the diagnosis of COVID-19, breast cancer, brain tumor, stroke detection and dementia risk. AIDE connects approved AI algorithms to a patient’s medical record seamlessly and securely, with the data never leaving the hospital trust. Once the clinical data has been analyzed, the results are sent back to the electronic healthcare record to support clinical decision-making. This provides another valuable data point for clinical multidisciplinary teams when reviewing patients’ cases. It’s hoped that AIDE can support speeding up this process to benefit patients.

“The AI Centre has done invaluable work towards integrating AI into national healthcare. Deploying MONAI is a critical milestone in our journey to enable the use of safe and robot AI innovations within the clinic,” said Professor Sebastien Ourselin, deputy director of the AI Centre. “This could only be achieved through our strong partnerships between academic and industry leaders like NVIDIA.”

What You Should Know:

– Optellum, an Oxford-based digital health company that provides a breakthrough AI platform to diagnose and treat early-stage lung cancer raises $14M in Series A funding led by Mercia, with additional investors Intuitive Ventures and Black Opal Ventures. Existing investors, including St John’s College in the University of Oxford, IQ Capital, and the family office of Sir Martin & Lady Audrey Wood, also participated in this round.

– The investment will enable Optellum to scale its base, operations, and commercial launches in the UK and USA; accelerate research and development; and expand its platform into personalized therapy decisions by integrating imaging data with molecular data, robotics, and liquid biopsies.

AI-Enabled Lung Cancer Diagnosis

Lung cancer is the most common type of cancer and the leading cause of cancer deaths in the world. Approximately 150,000 people in the United States and 1.8 million people worldwide die from lung cancer each year. The current worldwide five-year survival rate is 20 percent, primarily because most patients are diagnosed after symptoms have appeared and the disease has progressed to an advanced stage (Stage III or IV). In contrast, the survival rate for small tumors treated at Stage 1A is up to 90 percent. This disparity highlights a critical need for diagnosis and treatment at the earliest stage possible.

Founded in 2016, Optellum is the first and only medtech company to attain FDA clearance, CE-MDR in the EU, and UKCA in the UK for its software platform Virtual Nodule Clinic. This first-of-a-kind platform can help physicians identify and track at-risk patients, and optimally diagnose the signs of lung cancer early, so treatment can be started sooner for patients with tumors, and invasive procedures such as biopsies on benign lesions can be minimized.

Optellum’s platform was developed and clinically validated in partnership with leading universities and healthcare systems around the world. Optellum also has strategic collaborations with GE Healthcare and the Lung Cancer Initiative at Johnson & Johnson to accelerate clinical deployments and continue the advancement of the platform. In the UK, Optellum’s solution is being used to predict at-risk lung nodules in a multi-center study with NHS Trusts as part of a major investment in AI for healthcare.

What You Should Know:

– Venture capital firm General Catalyst announced a partnership with Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust (GSTT), the largest hospital system in the UK with a diverse patient population and a longstanding commitment to innovation.

– As part of the partnership, General Catalyst and GSTT will work together to identify innovative digital solutions that benefit patients and providers by addressing problems such as hospital capacity constraints, long wait times and staff shortages. Through this partnership, GSTT will have access to General Catalyst’s deep network of Health Assurance companies.

– General Catalyst’s Health Assurance vision is to partner with the healthcare industry to create a more patient-focussed, proactive healthcare designed to help people stay well,, and make quality care more efficient, affordable and accessible to all. This collaboration between General Catalyst, Guy’s and St Thomas’ and KHP Ventures underscores their alignment with the Health Assurance vision. 

What You Should Know:

– Datavant, the leader in helping organizations securely connect health data, today announced steps towards international expansion with the acquisition of Convenet, a health technology infrastructure company headquartered in the UK.

– Datavant will expand privacy-preserving tokenization and data linkage capabilities to the UK in order to connect clinical trial data to real-world data.

Building Trial Tokenization in the UK

Health data fragmentation is a global challenge that impedes understanding of unmet needs, hinders drug development, and harms patient care. Through Convenet, Datavant acquires an exceptional team that has built the world’s first National Health Service (NHS Digital) approved API that powers integrations into the NHS Spine, which is the central infrastructure that connects over 23,000 IT systems across healthcare and social care organizations in England. Convenet provides API connections to electronic health record (EHR) data from 100% of General Practitioners in England, enabling patient-consented data exchange covering all primary care settings.

This acquisition adds to Datavant’s talent bench in the UK and will accelerate the mission to connect the world’s health data to improve patient outcomes. The Convenet team will build a trial tokenization platform that meets all regulatory and compliance guidelines for processing UK patient data, along with continued development of Convenet’s core API infrastructure. Building a UK trial tokenization offering extends the success of the Datavant Trials platform in the US, which provides web-based solutions for trial sites to tokenize clinical trial data, for sponsors to track tokenized clinical studies, and for linkage of clinical trial data to real-world data with robust privacy review.

“This is an incredibly exciting time to be a part of the digital transformation of unlocking health data in the NHS and globally,” said Chris Turner, co-founder of Convenet. “Joining the Datavant team and working with the most respected and successful privacy-preserving health data connectivity platform presents a fantastic opportunity to build products and tools that revolutionize healthcare delivery for patients across the globe.”

Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed.

What You Should Know: 

– Wysa, a Boston, MA-based AI digital platform for mental health, today announces it has secured $20M in financing led by HealthQuad, who along with British International Investment (BII), the UK’s development finance institution, joins earlier investors W Health Ventures, Kae Capital, Google Assistant Investments, and pi Ventures amongst others.

– Funds will enable access to clinically evidenced digital therapeutics (DTx) in the US, UK, India and other global markets. Will enable further reach through multi-lingual support and access via alternative technologies.

Address Global Mental Health Demand With AI Digital Therapeutics

Globally, there is a huge demand-supply gap in the mental health space. One in eight people in the world live with a mental disorder, according to the World Health Organization. With high treatment cost and limited access to qualified therapists, employers, healthcare providers and insurers are seeking ways to help people manage their mental health and well-being through clinically proven, cost-effective and scalable solutions.

Wysa uses AI (Artificial Intelligence) to triage users according to their personal needs, guiding them through appropriate, evidence-based CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) exercises within the app, towards other mental health services or crisis support. Wysa’s platform provides employers and health services insights into usage rates of Wysa and digital well-being tools, while maintaining user privacy. 

FDA Breakthrough Device Designation

Wysa has achieved FDA Breakthrough Device Designation for its AI-based digital mental health conversational agent for adults with a diagnosis of chronic musculoskeletal pain and associated depression and anxiety. Additionally, clinical trials have validated Wysa’s efficacy and published peer-reviewed results show that therapeutic emotional bonds formed by Wysa are equivalent to human therapist relationships. The company has, to date, achieved a revenue-generating user base of over 4.5 million people across 65 countries. Clients include Accenture, Colgate-Palmolive, Aetna International, Swiss Re, the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK, and the Ministry of Health in Singapore.

What You Should Know:

– Oliva, a London-based workplace mental health platform announced it has raised $6.3M (£4.84M) in seed funding led by Stride VC, a seed-stage VC firm based in London, along with additional investment provided by Moonfire.

– The seed raise marks the largest seed funding for a mental health startup in Europe.

Help with Life’s Problems, Work-Related or Not

In the UK, poor mental health costs employers between £33 billion and £42 billion a year, and the UK economy between £74 billion and £99 billion per year. Evidence suggests that 12.7% of all sickness absence days in the UK can be attributed to mental health conditions. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated unprecedented demand for mental health support and along with it an explosion of ‘human-less’ digital health apps many of which lack any clinical evidence.

Co-founders Javier Suarez and Sançar Şahin saw the benefits of digitalization but also saw how this was de-personalizing mental health care. They identified a gap for a highly personalized, clinician-led approach enabled by technology.  The result – Oliva, uniquely blends clinician-led care with advanced digital tools to create a robust end-to-end person-centered platform for stress, depression, anxiety, and burnout.

Recent Traction & Strategic Plans

Oliva has experienced sustained revenue growth of over 30% month-on-month since the start of 2021 and is rapidly building out its infrastructure and capabilities. Most notably, the company recently hired industry veteran, Dr Sarah Bateup as Chief Clinical Officer to lead the development of Oliva’s highly personalized approach and rigorous quality control to drive better outcomes. Sarah has pioneered digital mental health service delivery within the NHS and has also authored important peer-reviewed publications that have advanced the field of evidence-based mental healthcare.

Oliva’s mission is to become the number one mental wellbeing platform for SMEs and fast-growth companies in the UK. It will use this seed capital injection to execute three key priorities in the coming year. These include the acceleration of new digital tools, the provision of additional languages and time zone availability to enable whole workforce coverage, and the expansion of its care offering to include workshops and self-guided content.

“This record seed raise is an important endorsement for Oliva’s platform and our exceptional team. Our vision is to become Europe’s most comprehensive and clinically validated workplace mental health platform. As businesses increasingly recognise the need to provide better support and to mitigate the impacts of mental health related absence, Oliva is a standout evidence-based platform that importantly goes beyond treatment to target prevention and early intervention,” said Oliva co-founder and CEO, Javier Suarez.

Glooko Acquires DIABNEXT® to Expand Diabetes Offerings in France

Glooko, a leading provider of remote patient monitoring and data management solutions for diabetes and related chronic conditions, today announced the acquisition of DIABNEXT, a Paris-based company whose digital health platform helps people with diabetes better manage their conditions and connects to their healthcare providers, so they can improve health outcomes. DIABNEXT’s mobile app complements Glooko’s product portfolio and tracks diabetes data so that physicians can collaborate with their patients to monitor individual patient data and provide remote care.

Avive Raises $22M for Connected AED Platform

Avive Solutions, Inc., developer of an intelligent AED and connected response platform for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) emergencies, today announced that it closed a $22 million Series A round of financing co-led by Questa Capital, Catalyst Health Ventures and repeat investor Laerdal Million Lives Fund. This funding will be used to advance a new technology-enabled approach for improving OHCA survival rates. Ryan Drant, founder and managing partner of Questa Capital, and Darshana Zaveri, managing partner of Catalyst Health Ventures, both joined the Avive board in connection with the financing.

PointClickCare Technologies Announces Closing of Audacious Inquiry Acquisition

PointClickCare Technologies announce the closing of the acquisition of Audacious Inquiry, a connected care platform. Together PointClickCare and Audacious Inquiry will improve patient outcomes through a highly integrated care collaboration platform, powered by the largest network of its kind in North America. 

BioCoach Reaches $100M Valuation to Fight Metabolic Disease

BioCoach, a leader in direct-to-consumer glucose monitoring and in-vitro diagnostic testing, announced today a $4M in its seed funding round from SecretLab LLC founder and serial tech entrepreneur Jason Bright, who had an interesting weight loss journey himself. Given that diabetes is the 7th leading cause of death in the US and costs well over $300B in the US annually, BioCoach’s funding has come at the perfect time. 

Strategic Partnerships

GE Healthcare and AliveCor Integrating Data from Consumer ECGs Into Clinical Workflow

AliveCor and GE Healthcare announced they are partnering to integrate data from AliveCor’s KardiaMobile 6L electrocardiogram (ECG) device directly into GE Healthcare’s MUSE Cardiac Management System (MUSE). Today, cardiologists often rely on real-time data from personal electrocardiogram (ECG) devices to help manage patients with cardiac conditions like atrial fibrillation (AFib). AliveCor’s KardiaMobile 6L ECG offers the only clinically validated six-lead detection of AFib and other common arrhythmias. That’s why AliveCor and GE Healthcare are partnering to integrate KardiaMobile 6L ECG data directly into hospital workflows to streamline and improve patient care.

RevSpring Expands Integrations with Cerner

RevSpring expands patient engagement and payment solution integrations with Cerner, broadening RevSpring’s platform of omnichannel and payment solutions to boost payment performance and patient satisfaction. Now more than 1,500 Cerner customers can access several of RevSpring’s solutions without friction – including customers such as Ohio-based Fisher-Titus, a leading rural hospital, that signed an agreement to implement two RevSpring products to coordinate all payment data and communications, increasing clarity for patients and streamlining back-office work.

Verily/Lumea Partnership to Leverage AI in Prostate Cancer Diagnoses

Verily and Lumea today announced a strategic partnership to develop products that can diagnose, prognose, and guide prostate cancer therapy selection with improved objectivity and efficiency. Lumea’s integrated digital pathology solution will validate Verily’s AI method for improving cancer detection and grading in partnership with Google Health. Verily’s AI algorithms will elevate patient care by giving physicians advanced tools to improve cancer diagnosis, as part of the Lumea digital pathology platform. Pathologists will have access to Verily’s AI to assist in identifying and grading prostate cancer within their existing digital workflow.

Proscia and Siemens Healthineers Expands Global Reach of Digital Pathology

Proscia®, a digital and computational pathology solutions announced a multi-year OEM agreement with Siemens Healthineers. Under the agreement, Siemens Healthineers will enter the market by combining its Syngo Carbon enterprise imaging solution with Proscia’s Concentriq Dx digital pathology platform.

Jvion Brings AI-Powered Clinical Insights to NTT DATA’s Nucleus for Healthcare Platform

NTT Data and Jvion have just announced a new partnership, which will bring Jvion’s prescriptive intelligence solution, the Jvion CORE to NTT Data’s popular Nucleus for Healthcare platform. The integration will bring clinical AI to NTT Data’s streamlined digital health accelerator – allowing users to more readily identify and assess risks, evaluate modifiable patients, and adjust patients’ health trajectories toward improved outcomes. 

Innoforce and Hibiscus BioVentures Combine Forces to Develop Advanced Therapies

Innoforce and Hibiscus BioVentures forms a strategic partnership to leverage their combined resources to advance new Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products (ATMPs) and biologic which will accelerate Hibiscus BioTechnology Studio Companies’ product pipeline. Innoforce is a global development and biomanufacturing company focused on ATMPs and Hibiscus BioVentures is committed to advancing patient care by supporting the development of commercially viable therapies. The strategic partnership will leverage Innoforce’s experience in drug development with Hibiscus’ pipeline initiatives.

Pivot Point Consulting and Legacy Health Enter Into Epic Help Desk Support Agreement

Healthcare IT consulting leader Pivot Point Consulting, a Vaco Company, was selected by Legacy Health, a locally owned, nonprofit health system based in Portland, Oregon to perform help desk support for all Epic EHR end-users across the organization. This engagement will enable Legacy Health to maintain high-quality Epic end-user support through a cost-effective support model and allow team members to focus on more complex projects and strategic initiatives.

FCC Announces Final Group of Connected Care Pilot Program Projects

Today, the Federal Communications Commission announced its fourth and final set of approved Connected Care Pilot Program projects.  These 16 projects were approved for a total of $29,752,601 in funding.  With the newly selected projects, the Connected Care Pilot Program is set to fund 107 projects serving patients in 40 states plus Washington, D.C. Today’s action also sets a uniform deadline for all participants to file their initial funding request by September 16, 2022.

Healthy.io & Medica Partner to Support Kidney Health

Healthy.io, a provider transforming the smartphone camera into a medical device, and Medica, a mission-driven nonprofit health insurance plan, today announced a pragmatic trial giving at-risk plan members the ability to test their kidney function at home. As part of the partnership, Members with diabetes and/or hypertension, two conditions that increase kidney disease risk, will receive free albumin-to-creatinine ratio (ACR) urine tests that can indicate an increased risk for chronic kidney disease (CKD). Members take the test in the comfort of their home and receive results immediately, which they can share with their health care provider to determine if care is needed to prevent chronic kidney disease. 

Komodo Health & Fight CRC Use Real-World Data to Identify Top Providers

Today, Komodo Health, builder of groundbreaking health IT software solutions and next-generation analytics, and Fight Colorectal Cancer (Fight CRC) are introducing a new tool – the Fight CRC Provider Finder – to help the colorectal cancer community simplify and accelerate how they identify colorectal cancer specialists across the U.S.

The new tool leverages Komodo’s Healthcare Map to help patients and caregivers find the right specialist and the right care pathway for their colorectal cancer journey. Users can evaluate specialists based on factors such as geographic accessibility, the volume of colorectal cancer patients they treat, clinical trial experience, and whether they have a strong referral network to support interdisciplinary care pathways.

Tesis Biosciences Partners with Frontier Management

Tesis Biosciences and Frontier Management Group are joining forces to maximize pharmacogenetics to support older adults by providing pharmacogenetic testing to senior care patients and enabling more effective medication results. This unique approach is changing how care teams support patients and improve health outcomes.

Terran Biosciences announces licensing deal with Columbia University

Terran Biosciences, a biotech platform company dedicated to the development of transformational therapeutics and technologies for neurological and psychiatric diseases, has entered into an agreement with Columbia University (“Columbia”) and the Research Foundation for Mental Hygiene (“RFMH”), to obtain worldwide exclusive rights to develop and commercialize Columbia’s proprietary CNS biomarker software platform and patent portfolio. 

Announcements

Philips expands its Cybersecurity Services portfolio for healthcare providers

Philips expands its medical device cybersecurity services portfolio with the introduction of Secure Remote Access Management Service, leveraging the broad set of security capabilities enabled by the integration of SecureLink’s critical access management and governance technology with Philips Remote Services’ secure connectivity framework for technical and clinical support. The services provide benefits for healthcare providers including increased uptime, clinical performance, and advanced security to help protect access to their clinical solutions and medical devices.

Philips PACS interoperability helps Scotland’s National Health Service deliver leading breast cancer screening

Royal Philips and NHS National Services Scotland, a non-departmental public body that provides advice and services to National Health Service (NHS) Scotland, today revealed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Scottish Breast Screening Program (SBSP), and the measures taken to deal with the backlog of delayed appointments. Philips’ vendor-neutral Vue PACS (Picture Archiving and Communication System) allows the SBSP’s six breast screening centers and its mobile screening units to interoperate with Scotland’s national PACS system, increasing access to breast screening for Scotland’s rural communities, enhancing patient choice, and streamlining diagnostic and treatment workflows.

Sema4 Launches Nationwide Expansion of Disparity Study to Deliver Precision Oncology Care to Underserved Communities

Sema4, a patient-centered artificial intelligence (AI)-driven genomic and clinical data platform company, today announced the nationwide expansion of its disparities in cancer care study. The study, launched in 2021, enables access to comprehensive genetic and genomic testing for advanced cancer patients in underserved communities. It will also create one of the most diverse clinical-genomic datasets to help resolve racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in clinical trials, research, and therapeutics. 

SubjectWell Expands Services to include Oncology Clinical Trials

Today, the SubjectWell expands services to now include oncology clinical trials, beginning with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the most common form of lung cancer. With a risk-free marketplace primed with registered NSCLC patients searching for care options, SubjectWell is poised to accelerate enrollment for the more than 200 current and upcoming NSCLC clinical trials.

Research/Survey Reports

Nurses Are Beyond Burnout, Suffering From PTSD as Spiraling Work Demands 

A majority of nurses (56%) report that they’re sacrificing their mental health for the job, reveals survey data from the IntelyCare Research Group. IRG is the research arm of IntelyCare, the largest digital staffing platform for nursing professionals seeking per diem positions.  The third-party data demonstrates that working conditions during COVID-19 have taken a significant toll on nurses’ mental, physical and emotional well-being and suggests why more than two-in-five (41%) are considering leaving the profession for good.  IntelyCare commissioned the third-party survey from Reputation Leaders, which surveyed more than 500 nurses in Q4 2021 to discuss opinions, thoughts, and trends in the nursing industry. 

Interoperable data and IT systems in healthcare has long been an enigma – many have tried to tackle the challenge, but until now very little has changed. A truly interconnected network that brings together the infinite number of siloed systems used in healthcare services around the world, and even within the same county, has remained elusive. And so too has patient access to their own data. Considered by some as two distinct problems, however in reality the answer to both is the same: web 3.0 and decentralization. 

Since the advent of the web in 1989, data has arguably become the single most valuable commodity. Data makes the modern world go round. And in healthcare, data can quite literally save lives. The right person having the right information at the right time – it’s a matter of life and death. The recent UK government draft policy Data Saves Lives highlighted the real-life example of a young woman with asthma who had visited different health care services on 42 separate occasions. A review of her case showed many of these visits had been recorded as a ‘first visit’ with limited –  to no information exchange at all – within and between healthcare professionals and services. Sadly, the young woman subsequently died, but her story begs the question: Could the outcome have been different with effective information sharing? The review concluded it could.

What is the decentralized Web?

Many organizations, like healthcare services, hold colossal volumes of sensitive information, and yet often the individuals whom the information refers to have no idea what information is being collected and who it is being shared with. In essence, this current paradigm is the ‘centralized Web’ aka ‘the Web’ as we know it today; the problem is that most data is now held captive in silos – rather than being held in the hands of the individual who owns it. 

This was never the intention of Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the Web. The original vision was of a collaborative, connected space, where information was spread out and shared to provide secure, democratized, and decentralized access to public and private data. Now, issues around data privacy and information segregation have catalyzed the search for more innovative and fair models of information exchange: The decentralized Web 3.0.

The updated Web is based on decentralized principles, putting the interests of individuals, or citizens, first. The latest update of the decentralized web is Solid, which is an ecosystem of interoperable specifications and standards that enables data to come together in decentralized personal online data stores (PODS).

Through the open-source Solid protocol, individuals can store information pertaining to the various aspects of their daily lives – such as banking, healthcare, internet browsing, fitness trackers, or even insurance details. Users are then able to make informed decisions about how, when, and if their data is released to external applications and entities.

Put simply, the decentralized web decouples data from applications so that individuals can use it how and where they choose.

Importantly, the introduction of Solid does not require the abolition of existing systems. Janeiro Digital has developed an interoperability platform called XFORM, to connect PODS on the decentralized web with existing systems and enable end-to-end user-consented data sharing.  XFORM allows data and applications to be decoupled without disruption to existing systems and its integration framework is essential to decentralization success.

Healthcare: The early adopters 

Healthcare is not widely known for its qualities as an early adopter of innovation and technology. In fact, it is often several paces behind industries like finance, transport and retail. However, healthcare has an obvious application for decentralization. 

The biggest, most successful and enduring social healthcare system in the world is the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), which has grown well beyond its original frame when it was founded in the 1940s. Consequent demands on it from every angle are enormous:  demands on medical services, infrastructure and data that were unimaginable some 73 years ago. For health systems like this, interoperability has always been out of reach and has continued to be an elusive concept. Personal health records and patient information are often siloed between numerous services and data storage platforms. Patient records exist in large, siloed centralized  IT systems, making it incredibly difficult to share data between different healthcare teams and services. This not only creates significant risk due to errors and even inability to effectively communicate, but it is also resource-intensive and at a time where services are stretched so far beyond capacity, the problem continues to be compounded.

Until recently, attempts to create a network of connectivity to join up systems and platforms to improve information sharing between clinicians, care facilities, and patients themselves have been unsuccessful. The creation of new digital transformation technologies around a patient-centered model of care within the NHS brings with it a different set of challenges around how data is stored and shared. The NHS has been making the case for digital transformation in the UK’s healthcare system, and for digital innovation to be integrated rather than kept in its own silos, to create a more coherent structure that will allow the NHS to accelerate digital transformation across health and care.

Recognizing the potential of decentralization, the NHS in Greater Manchester partnered with Janeiro Digital to explore the possibility of finding a practical solution to interoperability, whilst putting patients in control of their own information. This was the very first deployment of Web 3.0 Solid decentralization in a real-world scenario globally.

The solution utilized XFORM, the data bridge, created by Janeiro Digital, and Solid PODS to retrieve and merge data from different NHS systems, using HL7’s Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) Specification. For the first time, patients could access their own personal health records, and clinicians could also quickly access accurate and complete information. Each patient was provided with their own pod, which meant that their information followed them to every medical appointment, rather than being spread across numerous electronic and paper health record systems. This also significantly reduced the administrative burden on clinicians, as they no longer needed to search through and update multiple different systems.

More data, shared well for better care

The decentralized web represents more data, not less. And not just more data, but better data used more effectively: rich, real-world data. For healthcare, this means that PODS can contain an individual’s personal health record with every interaction they have ever had with a health system or service, or day-to-day activity and cardiac information from a fitness watch, as well as diet and lifestyle information from nutritional tracking, or purchasing information. If a person visits a doctor with a health concern, the doctor will have a 360-degree view of that individual and be able to make more personalized and specific treatment recommendations based on the patient’s specific needs and lifestyle. More data equals better care and better outcomes. 

Imagine a world where we could all individually share data for health research in a protected way much more easily. Our understanding, and therefore our ability to care for and treat chronic conditions like Alzheimer’s, kidney disease, or diabetes that affects people in epidemic proportions, would be better than ever before. Decentralized, consented data-sharing could hold the key to a healthier future for our societies.  

About Jonathan Bingham

Jonathan Bingham is CEO of Janeiro Digital, a business transformation and technology consultancy that helps enterprises dream bigger and transform faster. Throughout his career, Jonathan has been at the forefront of every major technology shift, helping businesses solve big problems, innovate and compete. Today, Jonathan leads Janeiro Digital’s mission to help businesses seize the transformative power of the decentralized web. Working closely with Sir Tim Berners-Lee and his Solid platform, Janeiro Digital is architecting the evolution of Solid and the growth of its ecosystem with enterprises around the globe.

Prior to Janeiro Digital, he founded Intrusic, an enterprise security solution that raised over $20 million in venture capital. Jonathan has won multiple awards for product innovation, spoken as an industry expert around the world, and been quoted in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, USA Today, and numerous technology sector publications.  

What You Should Know:

– TytoCare, an NYC-based all-in-one modular device and examination platform for AI-powered, on-demand, remote medical exams, today announced its expanded partnership with the NHS that will see the deployment of TytoCare’s telehealth solution across 14 organizations and 26 projects in Yorkshire and Humber, including Leeds Children’s Hospital, Sheffield Children’s, and nearly 70 care homes.

– The integration of the telehealth solution will allow clinicians to diagnose and treat patients remotely with in-depth, physical examinations during video visits and offline for asynchronous exams.

 Virtual Wards Project

After receiving CE Mark approval in 2018, TytoCare and Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust partnered the following year to carry out remote examinations for chronic pediatric respiratory patients, pediatric patients with ENT conditions, as well as pediatric palliative care. Bradford was the first trust in the UK to partner with TytoCare and the pilot received a high commendation from the HTN Health Tech Awards for ‘Most Promising Pilot.’

Starting with the success of the Bradford pilot and now building on the accelerated adoption of digital health during the COVID-19 pandemic, NHSX, a joint unit of the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England, and NHS Improvement, initiated a new Joined-Up Care Program to accelerate the scale of using digital innovations to transform patient care. The expansion is currently being implemented in various use cases, including care homes, remote patient monitoring, post-discharge care, pediatric virtual wards, and respiratory care.

At Leeds Children’s Hospital, TytoCare’s solution is being used by the Cleft Lip & Palate Team, where cleft nurses can take high-quality images and videos of babies’ mouths in the maternity unit and when they visit the baby at home for follow-ups. The images are then reviewed by a surgeon for diagnosis, the planning of surgical options, as well as post-op, follow up, all virtually without the need for the baby and their family to travel to outpatient appointments.

Doctors at Sheffield Children’s are using TytoCare devices for the NHS FT Home Ventilation Virtual Clinic to undertake physical checks on community visits and facilitate online remote consultations and examinations. Sheffield Children’s plans on deploying the TytoCare devices to its NHS FT Pediatric Palliative Care Team so that more children and families can benefit from enhanced virtual support at home, avoiding travel to and from the hospital.

Almost 70 care homes and their linked primary care medical practices are also deploying TytoCare’s solution. Due to the pandemic, care homes are limiting in-person doctor’s visits and consultations to reduce the risk of transmission to residents, and due to high demand for primary care, doctors are also looking to minimize travel time to and from the homes. TytoCare’s solution offers care homes enhanced capabilities for virtual consultations, enabling physicians to facilitate a more thorough level of clinical assessment and better clinical decision making, without the need for an in-person assessment of the patient every time.

Additionally, this enables care homes to treat more patients, including those in rural areas, in a more cost and resource-effective manner. The integration of TytoCare also empowers care home staff to better support the healthcare needs of their residents, while improving the residents’ experience through better managing their health needs in the home.

The Yorkshire & Humber Academic Health Science Network (AHSN) has been working closely with TytoCare, maximizing its knowledge of and relationships within the health sector to support the adoption and spread of the TytoCare solution across the healthcare system. After noticing the solution during its initial pilot in Bradford, the Yorkshire & Humber AHSN advocated for it to be part of NHSX’s Joined-Up Care Program.

Following the successful roll-out of these and other TytoCare projects, additional NHS trusts and Clinical Commissioning Groups across the UK are currently integrating TytoCare into their virtual care pathways.

– Emergency doctors in the UK have said many electronic health records (EHRs) in use are close to being unacceptable, and this is likely to be having a negative impact on patient care.

A national survey of more than 1500 members and fellows of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine ranked the usability of the major EHRs in use across the UK. All fell short of internationally recognized usability standards.

It led NHS CCIO Simon Eccles to remark that ‘too little has changed’ from research done 15 years ago that highlighted the poor usability of electronic records. “Good usability leads to better safety,” he said on Twitter. Usability ‘is really important for basic safety, to not waste clinical time, and to enable best practice’.   

Fifteen systems were ranked against the System Usability Scale, which is recognized as an effective international measure of system usability. The median score for all systems was 53, compared to an industry average of 68. Products with a usability score lower than 50 are judged to be unacceptable, and several fell below this figure including Atos and DXC.

The study, recently published in the BMJ highlights how systems with poor usability are a threat to patient safety, are inefficient, and contribute to burnout and unfulfilling working life. Good systems may actively prevent patient harm by helping to ensure clinical staff correctly follow the right care processes. 

Dr Ben Bloom, Consultant in Emergency Medicine at Royal London Hospital and study co-author highlighted how poor usability has been cited as one of the major barriers to realizing the benefits of digital health records.

He said: “Usability directly impacts how staff works within the NHS. Time spent entering data is not spent directly caring for patients. Systems with good usability, particularly those into which users have had a say in the design, lead to improved work fulfillment. In contrast, poorly usable systems contribute to low morale and staff burnout.” 

The situation is particularly relevant to emergency departments, where there is said to be a high turnover of doctors. Systems need to be as intuitive as possible if they are to be useful. 

Dr. Bloom recommended that providers collaborate and gathered data on usability. This would present a true, united, and consistent account of where improved systems would lead to improved processes, and therefore improved healthcare delivery.

Paul Volkaerts, CEO of Nervecentre, whose system was ranked top for usability with a median score of 65, supported such closer scrutiny. 

“Since the advent of EHR systems, ‘clinician usability’ has been the evasive holy grail,” he said. “Poor usability leads to poor user adoption, takes up clinical time, and can directly impact patient safety and clinical outcomes. 

“Regular surveys of this nature would help the industry and system buyers gain an informed perspective on those suppliers that are investing in usability, versus those that are not. We have taken strong steps to ensure our mobile EPR is the most user-friendly in the market since this research was undertaken, and will continue to do so in close collaboration with frontline staff.”

The study also recommended that further research should be undertaken with users to understand what characteristics of an EHR system make it most usable. 

What You Should Know:

– This week, the United Kingdom (UK) will be the first country in the world to run a COVID-19 human challenge study, following approval from the UK’s clinical trials ethics body.

– First Covid-19 human challenge study will begin within a month, after receiving ethics approval in the same week the UK hits target of offering first dose to 15 million people.

– Researchers call on healthy young people to volunteer for the study, which will play a key role in developing effective COVID-19 vaccines and treatments.

Backed by a £33.6 ($46.5 USD) million UK government investment, the first-of-its-kind study for this virus will involve establishing the smallest amount of virus needed to cause infection, which will give doctors greater understanding of COVID-19 and help support the pandemic response by aiding vaccine and treatment development.

UK COVID Challenge: How It Works

The UK COVID Challenge is being delivered by a partnership between the government’s Vaccines Taskforce, Imperial College London, the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust and the industry-leading clinical company hVIVO, which has pioneered viral human challenge models.

Slated to start in the new few weeks, 90 carefully selected, healthy adult volunteers being exposed to the virus in a safe and controlled environment. The UK COVID Challenge study will initially use the version of the virus that has been circulating in the UK since March 2020 and has been shown to be of low risk in young healthy adults. Medics and scientists will closely monitor the effect of the virus on volunteers and will be on hand to look after them 24 hours a day.

The virus being used in the characterization study has been produced by a team at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust in London, in collaboration with hVIVO with support from virologists at Imperial College London.

Researchers are encouraging people aged between 18 and 30 years old, who are at the lowest risk of complications resulting from coronavirus, to volunteer for this vital study. Volunteers will be compensated for the time they spend in the study. Once this initial study has taken place, vaccine candidates, which have proven to be safe in clinical trials, could be given to small numbers of volunteers who are then exposed to the COVID-19 virus, helping to identify the most effective vaccines and accelerate their development.

This initial study will also help doctors understand how the immune system reacts to coronavirus and identify factors that influence how the virus is transmitted, including how a person who is infected with COVID-19 virus transmits infectious virus particles into the environment.

“We are asking for volunteers aged between 18 and 30 to join this research endeavour and help us to understand how the virus infects people and how it passes so successfully between us. Our eventual aim is to establish which vaccines and treatments work best in beating this disease, but we need volunteers to support us in this work,” said Chief Investigator Dr Chris Chiu, from Imperial College London.

Safety Measures

The researchers are also working very closely with the Royal Free Hospital and the North Central London (NCL) Adult Critical Care Network to ensure the study will not impact on the NHS’ ability to care for patients during the pandemic. The study will not begin without their go-ahead.

Understanding the Human Challenge Model Approach vs. Standard Vaccine Clinical Trials

The Human Challenge Model is a study during which healthy volunteers are deliberately exposed to a virus, known as the “challenge virus”. This approach is different to standard vaccine clinical trials where volunteers are exposed to viruses naturally. The key benefit is the Human Challenge Model can provide a more efficient and faster way to develop vaccines as fewer volunteers are required.

Over many decades, human challenge studies have been performed safely and have played important roles in accelerating the development of treatments for diseases including malaria, typhoid, cholera, norovirus and flu. The trials have also helped researchers establish which possible vaccine is most likely to succeed in phase 3 clinical trials that would follow, usually involving thousands of volunteers. To date, hVIVO has completed 50 research projects which have included over 3,000 volunteers, using viruses such as Influenza, Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) and Human Rhinovirus (HRV). The COVID-19 Human Model approach will help development of COVID-19 specific vaccines and treatments.

“This study is a key enabling study to establish the COVID-19 challenge model and determine the lowest possible dose of virus required. Data from this study will immediately facilitate the challenge model to be used for vaccine efficacy testing as well as to answer a wide range of fundamental scientific questions that are not feasible with traditional field trials, such as exactly what type of immunological response is required to confer protection from re-infection,” said Chief Scientific Officer at hVIVO, Dr Andrew Catchpole.

The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) is changing the face of healthcare and has the potential to significantly improve patient access as well as system efficiencies. The adoption of telemedicine, for example, spurred on by the Covid-19 pandemic, has spread rapidly.  Forrester revised its forecasts to predict that virtual care visits in the United States will soar to more than one billion this year—including 900 million visits related to Covid-19 specifically. Likewise, in the United Kingdom, 40% of doctor’s appointments now consist of phone or video calls.

Even before the pandemic, the adoption of IoMT was already growing rapidly, with the market valued at US$44.5 billion in 2018 and predicted to reach US$254 billion in 2026. There are more than 500,000 medical devices on the market, helping to diagnose, monitor, and treat patients – and more and more of these can, and are, becoming connected – not to mention innovations yet to enter the market. The connected medical devices segment specifically is expected to exceed $52 billion by 2022.

The COVID-19 Effect

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the healthcare landscape more than any other single event in recent memory. The urgent and widespread need for care, coupled with the challenge of physical distancing, has accelerated the creation and adoption of new digital technologies as well as new processes to support their adoption and implementation across healthcare. The MedTech industry is emerging as a key apparatus to combat the virus and provide urgent support.

A simple example demonstrating the potential benefits of IoMT can be seen even within a hospital setting, where monitoring COVID-19 patients is costly in terms of time and PPE (personal protective equipment) consumption, since simply walking into a patient’s room becomes a complex process. IoMT technologies enable medical devices to send data to medical practitioners who can monitor a patient’s condition without having to take readings at the bedside. The same technologies can enable patients who do not require hospitalization to be safely monitored while remaining at home or in a community setting. 

From the patients’ perspective, many are embracing virtual healthcare as an alternative to long waits or having to go to a clinic or hospital altogether. And given the growing number and scope of connected medical devices and services, such as remote patient monitoring, therapy, or even diagnosis, there will be even more options in the future.  

Catalyzed by the pandemic, the IoMT genie is fully out of the bottle, and it is unlikely to go back. 

Increasing Access

This is good news for healthcare and good news for patients and families. Patient access is improving as telehealth, supported by connected devices to enable the collection of health-related data remotely, is helping to lift barriers. This increase in accessibility has the potential to improve the convenience, timeliness, and even safety of access to healthcare services for more people in more places. 

IoMT is lifting geographic barriers that have impeded access to healthcare since its very inception. Individuals with transportation or mobility challenges will no longer need to travel to receive routine care if they can be safely monitored while at home. Historically underserved rural or remote communities can gain access to medical specialists without needing to fly or drive great distances, while services can be delivered more cost-effectively. 

Furthermore, with fewer clinic or hospital-based appointments required for routine monitoring of patients who are otherwise doing well, doctors would be able to concentrate their in-person time and clinic resources on those most in need of care. 

The capacity for specialized medicine enabled by IoMT could also have a dramatic impact. The vast quantities of health data becoming available (with the requisite permissions in place), can enable sophisticated AI-driven health applications that can, for example, predict complications before they occur, better understand the health needs of specific populations, or enable stronger patient engagement and self-care. These models can also equip healthcare practitioners with better sources of information, ultimately leading to better patient outcomes.

Navigating Barriers

That said, while technology capabilities expand, innovation must take into consideration the needs of all the stakeholders within healthcare – from patients and caregivers to healthcare practitioners to administrators and payors/funders. Internet access, infrastructure, and comfort with technology, for example, can pose significant barriers for patients and health practitioners alike. 

One approach is to minimize the technological burden facing end-users. Devices should be user friendly and “ready to go” right out of the box, taking into consideration the circumstances and abilities of the potential range of users (patients and practitioners alike). Relying on the patient’s home Wi-Fi to provide connectivity is not ideal from either a usability or security perspective – not to mention availability and affordability. It is better for medical devices to have a cellular connection that can be immediately and securely connected to the network from any location, while also being remotely manageable to avoid burdening the user with network and setup requirements, or apps to download. 

Another barrier is the concern that both patients and healthcare providers have about security and data privacy risks. According to the 2016 edition of Philips’ Future Health Index, privacy/data security is second only to cost in the list of top barriers to the adoption of connected technology in healthcare across the countries surveyed.  

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, FBI, and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services have warned of cybercrime threats against hospitals and healthcare providers. The WannaCry ransomware attacks affected tens of thousands of NHS medical tools in England and Scotland. The enthusiasm in rolling out new digital health solutions must not overlook security principles or create systems that rely on ad hoc patches.

One way of meeting the stringent security requirements of healthcare is to ensure that connected medical devices have security literally built into their hardware, following the most recent guidelines set out by the GSMA for IoT security, including the GSMA IoT SAFE specifications. In accordance with this globally relevant approach, connected devices have a specially designed SIM that serves as a mini “crypto safe” inside the device to ensure that only authorized communication can occur.

Similarly, new medical devices and software that are difficult to implement or cannot communicate with other systems such as electronic health/medical records risk being “orphaned” in the system or simply not used.  The latter is a matter of both developing the necessary integrations and ensuring the appropriate access and permissions are managed. More easily said than done, fully integrated systems take time, and some of the pieces may be added incrementally – the key is that the potential to do so is there from the beginning so future resources can be invested in enhancements rather than replacements. 

Early Collaboration is Key

Accessibility and usability must be designed right into IoMT solutions from the outset, and the best way of ensuring that is for developers and healthcare stakeholders to have plenty of interaction long before the product enters the market. Stakeholders are many and healthcare systems are complex, so innovators can look to startup accelerators and other thought leaders to help navigate the territory. The time and effort spent by innovators and healthcare stakeholders in collaborating is a sound investment in the future, ensuring that technology is designed and then applied in meaningful and equitable ways to address the most pressing issues. 

The telehealth genie, powered by IoMT, is indeed out of the bottle and is set to revolutionize healthcare. By ensuring that IoMT technologies are developed and implemented with security, accessibility, and ease of use for all stakeholders as priorities, we can make sure that the full benefits of this new dawn can be enjoyed by all. 

Heidi Sveistrup, Ph.D. Bio

As the current CEO of the Bruyère Research Institute and VP, Research and Academic Affairs at Bruyère Continuing Care, Heidi Sveistrup, Ph.D. is focusing on increasing the research and innovation supporting pivotal transitions in care; meaningful, enjoyable and doable ways to support people to live where they choose; and creating opportunities to discover and create new approaches to identify, diagnose, treat and support brain health with individuals with memory loss. Fostering new and supporting existing collaborations among researchers, policymakers, practitioners, civil society and industry continues to be a priority.

Elza Seregelyi Bio

Elza Seregelyi is the Director for the TELUS L-SPARK MedTech Accelerator program, which offers participants pre-commercial access to a secure telehealth platform. L-SPARK is currently working with its first cohort of MedTech companies. Elza has an engineering and entrepreneurship background with extensive experience driving collaborative initiatives.