“Mainstreaming medical apps; reducing NHS costs; improving patient outcomes” – a brief summary

May 10, 2015 | by

What follows is a brief summary of the presentations given at the Royal Society of Medicine’s third “Appday”, held on 9th April 2015. All three events have been sell-outs.

Anne Hayes, Head of Market Development at BSI, opened the event with an excellent presentation on the then shortly-to-be-finalised PAS 277 on mHealth apps (now available, free, here). She particularly welcomed the opportunity to present to clinicians, as too often her audience was primarily technologists. The presentation was especially impressive because Anne had only agreed to do the presentation the previous Friday, following realisation by both MHRA & NICE that proximity to the election meant neither could present. Anne explained that PAS 277, as a Publicly Available Specification, is not mandatory – it is essentially a checklist for developers and purchasers of medical apps to consider.

Julie Bretland, CEO of OurMobileHealth, then presented on the preliminary conclusions of the NIB Workstream 1.2 on how best to approve medical apps. (more…)

Last minute opportunity – long term care revolution LIVE 12/13 May & 1/2 June

May 8, 2015 | by

LTCR Live London is now just a few days away, and free to attend

Innovate UK are looking for the most ambitious early stage innovative businesses, start-ups and SMEs to join the Long Term Care Revolution Live.

Dates are: London 12/13 May 2015 & Edinburgh 1/2 June 2015

Across the two day events you will connect with emerging thought leaders, explore new ideas with leading health & care providers, entrepreneurs, policymakers, funders and designers; and engage in experiences that will challenge your current assumptions.

You will learn about a £4 million (more…)

BSI publishes medical apps code of practice – PAS 277

May 7, 2015 | by

After some six months of consultation and hard work, the BSI has produced PAS 277, which can be downloaded free, here. The purpose of the code, which is not mandatory, is to provide guidance to app developers on the key issues to be aware of when developing and delivering medical apps. This editor, as Managing Director of DHACA, was a member of the team developing the code.

PAS stands for Publicly Available Standard – to quote Wikipedia, the objective of a Publicly Available Specification is to speed up standardization. PASs are often produced in response to an urgent market need.

Again representing DHACA, this editor is now also a member of the drafting committee of the EU’s voluntary code focusing (more…)

Should patients manage their own care records? RSM 4th June

April 29, 2015 | by

Like the banking industry 10-15 years ago, Healthcare providers are coming to realise that if they start to provide intuitive software that can be used on consumer devices, then people (patients) will start to do more of the work (for free) that the Healthcare Industry currently has to pay for. These unpaid workers will be motivated by a desire for greater transparency of their own health and care information, and the ability to manage that information in the most efficient and effective ways possible; with the ultimate aim of improving their care quality and overall wellness.

This means that they will need something other than an EHR to do this, something that is constructed with the service user in mind, not the clinician. Something that makes it easy for them to see the interactions that they have had, the resultant actions, and the future planned interactions that are to come. Something that when they enter the highly fragmented world of UK care provision, allows them to have immediate access to the core elements of information that any other care provider would need. (more…)

Important: DHACA’s response to the RCP advice on medical apps

April 29, 2015 | by

The Royal College of Physicians has just published app guidance that, according to EHI “doctors should only use medical apps with an official CE mark”. EHI goes on to clarify that the guidance “applies to medical apps that can be classed as medical devices, which are bound by EU law to carry the mark.”

The Digital Health & Care Alliance (DHACA), of which this reviewer is Managing Director, is extremely concerned that this advice may seriously impact on the beneficial use of medical apps in the UK as it places the onus of deciding whether an app is a medical device on individual clinicians, a decision that at times even experienced MHRA personnel can equivocate on.

As the original research done by this editor on the topic of medical app take-up demonstrated, clinicians (more…)

Cumbria Technology Enabled Care Event Thursday 18 June

April 29, 2015 | by

This event will showcase the latest developments in technology enabled health & social care products & services. There will be discussions about how professionals can use technology in the redesign of Health and Social Care in Cumbria. This will build on the telecare work already undertaken by Cumbria County Council as well as the telehealth pilots that have taken place around the county and further afield.

It will be held at the Rheged Centre Redhills, Penrith, Cumbria, CA11 0DQ, between 13:30 – 16:00 on Thursday 18th June.

Topics to be discussed include:

  • New tools available from the NHS Commissioning Assembly – the Technology Enabled Care Services Resource;
  • How to use technology to enhance health and social care priorities such as prevention and well-being, remote consultations, managing long term conditions, independent living at home, winter pressures, mental health and dementia care.

(more…)

Medical apps & medication adherence: two key reports from the UK Academy of Medical Sciences

April 25, 2015 | by

This editor was involved in the development of two events at the Academy of Medical Sciences that took place at the end of 2014, the reports of which have just been publicised.

The first, on medical apps, brought together a wide range of stakeholders to:

  • Explore the current and proposed regulatory frameworks for health apps;
  • Hear case studies of the development of health apps and of the regulation and oversight of software development in other medical, nuclear and automotive sectors;
  • Discuss the current and future challenges faced in the oversight of health apps and devise solutions to these issues.

Particular issues raised during the day included: (more…)

A very important positive shift in attitude to digital health

April 24, 2015 | by

Hat tip to Mike Clark for alerting this editor to a particularly important run of recent papers on digital health that suggests that we have at last turned the corner from the seemingly endless enquiries of the “does it work?” type, to asking instead “how can it be made best to work?”.

We’ll start with perhaps one of the most unequivocal papers on the benefits of telehealth this editor can remember – a review by a team from the Mayo Clinic of controlled trials between 1990 and 2014 of digital health for managing cardiovascular disease. It is entitled “Digital Health Interventions for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis”. The results found were that “digital health interventions significantly reduced CVD outcomes”. It makes great reading. Another smaller academic study of an NHS Croydon implementation for both CHF & COPD also showed positive results, and strong patient appeal specifically, too.

Another paper, just published by Stephen Agboola of Partners Healthcare, and colleagues from Boston US, entitled “Heart Failure Remote Monitoring: Evidence From the Retrospective Evaluation of a Real-World Remote Monitoring Program”,  further supports the benefits of telehealth for managing CHF. However, benefits disappeared after the 120-day telehealth usage ended, as discussed by Jonah Comstock of mobihealthnews – important lessons to be learned there, relating perhaps to what follows in this post.

(Though not an academic study, it’s worth perhaps also recording en passant a Health Recovery Solutions (HRS) claim that they reduced the 30 day readmission rate for 130 congestive heart failure patients by 53%, from 8.0% to 3.8%, over a period from July 2014 to February 2015.)

Moving on then to a paper by Trisha Greenhalgh and colleagues entitled “What is quality in assisted living technology? The ARCHIE framework for effective telehealth and telecare services”. This paper concludes that (more…)

The Future of Medicine – Technology and the Role of the Doctor in 2025: May 6th

April 21, 2015 | by

Come to this RSM/IET jointly organised event on May 6th in London for a rare glimpse of what technology may do for the role of the doctor in ten years’ time. We have a fabulous line-up of academics, clinicians and entrepreneurs who are all working on really exciting breakthroughs that will profoundly change the way healthcare is provided over the next ten years.

First off is Prof Ian Kunkler (Consultant Clinical Oncologist & Professor in Clinical Oncology at the Edinburgh Cancer Research Centre) who will set the scene for the day. He will be followed by Prof Joachim Gross (Chair of Systems Neuroscience, Acting Director of  the Centre  for Cognitive Neuroimaging  and Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator, University of Glasgow) who will be discussing Magnetoencephalopathy (MEG) Signal Analysis. Dr David Clifton (Lecturer, Department of Engineering Science & Computational Informatics Group, University of Oxford) will then give a talk on Real-time Patient Monitoring. Finally in this section on Signals, Prof Bill Sandham (Managing Director, Scotsig; Director, Diabetes Technology Research, HCi Viocare; Visiting Professor, University of Strathclyde & Javeriana University, Colombia) will talk on Biosignal Processing and Analysis.

After the break, the subject turns to Imaging, where there will be two speakers (more…)

A brief collation of important stuff

April 21, 2015 | by

This editor has been so time starved of late that blogging has proved impossible. However the information has continued to come in so here is a selection of the most important:

CUHTec – effective Wednesday 1 April 2015, CUHTec is now being hosted by Coventry University Health Design & Technology Institute (HDTI). A new website is up and running where you can book courses online.

Telehealth Quality Group – the website for the International Code of Practice for Telehealth service, previously known as TeleSCoPE,  should go live on 22 April at midday, in synchrony with Malcolm Fisk starting his presentation on same at MedeTel.

Testbeds – there’s a most interesting NHS England initiative, whereby NHS units are being asked to put themselves up as trial sites for entrepreneurs to use as testbeds for innovative ways of providing care. The AHSNs will play a key role in brokering testbed and innovator.

Growth spaces for life sciences – an organisation calling itself (more…)

Free e-consultation event for medical students and doctors at the Royal Society of Medicine

April 10, 2015 | by

For two years in a row, Leicester Medical School has been successfully introducing its first year medical students to e-consultations, an interactive and virtual training program built in partnership with Patients Know Best (PKB). Since then, it has been expanded to three other schools including pharmacy at De Montfort University and has garnered a lot of attention from international schools.

Last year’s event was widely successful as Leicester Medical School and PKB reflected on their experiences, implications of the tool, and lessons learned.

This year, again hosted at the Royal Society of Medicine, Leicester Medical School’s Dr. Ron Hsu and his team are sharing their thoughts and approaches about this training program and reflecting on what will be expected of future generations of physicians and pharmacists.

Anyone interested in e-consultation should consider attending this event. Further details are in this poster. To sign up for the free event on Tuesday, May 5, 2015 from 6:30pm – 8:30pm, please email Dr. Ron Hsu at rth4@leicester.ac.uk.

RSM’s Medical Apps one-day conference 9th April – last call

March 30, 2015 | by

The next RSM event, entitled “Mainstreaming medical apps; reducing NHS costs; improving patient outcomes” is on 9th April, where there are still a few spaces left. This one-day conference will build on the last two years’ sell-out one-day conferences on medical apps at the RSM.

This year as medical apps are coming of age, the focus is on the critical aspects of mainstreaming them, in particular the various UK and EU regulatory issues that need managing in order to enable apps to be recommended or prescribed with confidence by clinicians. This will also include examples of ground- breaking medical apps as well as the use of electronic games to promote health and wellbeing.

Speakers on the regulatory side include, from the UK Professor Gillian Leng, Deputy Chief Executive of NICE, and Jo Hagan-Brown & Dr Neil McGuire from the MHRA, and from the European Commission Pēteris Zilgalvis, Head of Unit for Health and Well-being. Julian Hitchcock from lawyers Lawford Davies Denoon will give another of his excellent talks summarising the regulatory position from a user’s point of view, Dr Richard Brady will update us on bad apps and Julie Bretland will describe progress on the National Information Board’s work on how best to evaluate medical apps.

From the patient perspective, Alex Wyke will be talking about developing guidelines for good practice in health apps and Dr Tom Lewis from Warwick (in place of Prof Jeremy Wyatt now sadly unable to attend) will be talking about how best to evidence benefits from apps.

Describing some novel apps will be Professor Ray Meddis, on how to make an iPhone a hearing aid, Professor Susan Michie from UCL on gamification of smoking cessation, Ileana Welte from big White Wall on why mental health is such fertile ground for apps, and Ian Hay describing the challenges of using Android apps to deliver artificial pancreas-like functionality for the GSMA Brussels to Barcelona bike ride.

Should be a great day, and at the RSM’s rates, a tiny fraction of the cost of a commercially-run event!

Book here

Supplier offer

For £50/table, the RSM is also offering SMEs the opportunity to demonstrate their medical apps to the professional audience during refreshment breaks and at lunch (for more information on this offer contact Charlotte on 0207 290 3942). There are just four tables left now.

The end of an era – is this Mike Clark’s last newsletter?

March 27, 2015 | by

Ardent followers of Mike Clark’s newsletters will be saddened by the news that the current funding from Innovate UK, KTN Ltd and the Assisted Living Innovation Platform to support the extensive work he does to keep us all informed of important stuff has come to an end.

The Telecare LIN is therefore looking to its readers. To maintain a comprehensive monthly news summary going out to over 48,000 people, they are looking to crowdsource funding to support the website, content and hundreds of links and journal article references each month. They are currently looking for a number of organisations to support continuing production (including supplements, Twitter stream, archive) at around the £5k level per year. The news service, currently in its tenth year is recognised as an authoritative source and valuable resource in the UK and in other parts of the world working on digital health, telehealth, mHealth, telemedicine and telecare.

More details, and who to send the money to, are on the first page of the newsletter.

Mike will also be appearing in person (more…)

NHS Apps Library embraces mental health…and Mole Detective vanishes

March 24, 2015 | by

Thanks to Mike Clark for pointing this editor to the breaking news that the NHS Mental Health Apps Library has now gone live. It features online tools, resources and apps that they claim have a proven track record of effectiveness in improving mental health outcomes.

It is accessible through the NHS Choices platform, a website that gathers over 40 million visits per month, 9.7 million of which are to pages on depression; 6 million per month to stress and 9.4 million to anxiety.

This is likely to be a major benefit to those who have difficulty obtaining access to face:face mental health services, especially as a number of presentations in the Royal Society of Medicine have suggested that online mental health services can often be more effective (more…)

Next DHACA Members’ Day 27th April – come for free!

March 20, 2015 | by

The next DHACA members’ Day will take place on April 27th at the Norcroft Conference Centre at Bradford University (Tumbling Hill St, BD7 1DB) starting at 9.30 am – all members are invited, free, and membership currently remains free, too.

The principal focus of the day will be five projects that members of DHACA special interest groups (“SIGs”) are beginning work on – the intention is to engage all DHACA members in at least one. The five projects are:

  • Testbeds for digital health
  • Developing mHealth Apps
  • Wearables for Self-Care
  • Defining the digital platform for citizen engagement with the NHS
  • A Programme of Education to promote apps and other digital technology in self care

To start the day, we have invited Beverley Bryant, Director of Strategic Systems and Technology at NHS England, and Bill McCarthy, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Operations), and Honorary Professor of Health Policy at the University of Bradford, to speak.

Join DHACA here. Book your place for April 27th here.

Recent developments in digital health – RSM event report

March 17, 2015 | by

The third successive year’s sellout “Recent developments in digital health” event, hosted by the Royal Society of Medicine (RSM) in London, UK, attracted prestigious speakers from across the NHS, industry and academia and provided delegates with a comprehensive overview of digital healthcare advancements in 2015.

Organised by Dr Andrew Harper, from the Telemedicine & eHealth Section at the RSM, the meeting provided insight into how the NHS is lining up to integrate and deploy digital health technologies to advance patient care.

Attracting senior NHS England members including: Paul Rice, Head of Technology Strategy; Dr Mahiben Marruthappu and Dr Harpreet Sood, Senior Fellows to the Chief Executive, the vision for digital health integration and deployment throughout the NHS was finely characterised and explained to delegates.

These sessions were supplemented by real-world experiences from Dr Dominic (more…)