Digital Mental Health for Adults – a one day conference at the RSM on 23 September 2019 in London

September 6, 2019 | by

The next event run by the Royal Society of Medicine’s Digital Health Council, on 23rd September, focuses on digital mental health for people over 18. There are two main sides in the high level discussion around this topic. There is an increasingly active (and commercially burgeoning) group of companies and individuals who believe that there are a digital tools that can help to screen, manage and in some cases treat people with mental health issues (or who suspect they may have one). Some of these are simply ways of digitally enabling remote conversations between mental health care providers and those that require advice or care. Some are AI driven tools that to some degree replace the human element of care and support. The event will discuss whether this not only addresses workforce issues but also delivers clinical efficacy.

On the other hand, many believe that the use of digital technologies can adversely affect the mental health of people who use them, often to excess. Do the potential benefits outweigh these negative factors, or is a digital detox something that your GP may soon be prescribing?

Come along and get involved! Booking is here – tickets start at £20 (RSM student rate) for the day including a delightful lunch.

RSM’s Medical apps: mainstreaming innovation with Matt Hancock

February 28, 2019 | by

This event on 4 April run by the Royal Society of Medicine’s Digital Health Section continues the successful series started by this editor (now no longer involved) seven years ago. It will examine the growing role that apps are playing in healthcare delivery.

Join colleagues to hear renowned speakers, including the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Matt Hancock, discuss the current and future part apps can play in the NHS and broader healthcare industry. We will hear Wendy Clarke, executive director at NHS Digital talk about the new NHS app. As apps move from concept to pilot to practice, demonstrating efficacy becomes increasingly important, so will be looking at how we can best assess clinical effectiveness. It is well recognised that poorly designed software can hamper rather than enhance healthcare. Matt Edgar Head of design for NHS Digital will talk of the importance of good design in medical apps, and how it can improve patient and clinician experience. The use of cutting edge technology in healthcare necessarily opens new regulatory and legal issues. We are pleased to have our legal counsel, Julian Hitchcock back to share his experience with this, with a particular focus on the use of artificial intelligence in healthcare. We will also be examining the importance of interoperability, as medical apps become more mainstream, and how to make this happen. We have some presentations, too, from new and established medical start-ups, showcasing the transformative effects these new technologies can have. Finally, we will take a look at what the future may hold with futurologist Lewis Richards, Chief Digital Officer of Servest.

Aims:

This meeting aims to: 

  • Encourage clinicians to consider medical apps when deciding on an appropriate intervention
  • Aid understanding of the medicolegal issues around medical app use
  • Reduce the fear, uncertainty and doubt about the use of medical apps

Objectives:

By the end of this meeting, delegates will be able to,

  • Have an understanding of the current state of the art of medical apps
  • Explain the latest position on regulation and endorsement of medical apps
  • Have an appreciation of how to assess the clinical effectiveness of medical apps. 

Book here – best to book soon too, as currently the RSM has not allocated the largest lecture theatre to the event so it will almost certainly sell out.

The most important event in two weeks’ time: the Future of Medicine on June 13th at the RSM!

May 30, 2018 | by

In two weeks’ time, Donald Trump may meet Kim Jong-Un in Singapore and the World Cup will begin, though even more importantly the Royal Society of Medicine will be holding its fourth Future of Medicine event in partnership with the Institute of Engineering and Technology: on June 13th to be precise.

The full title is the Future of Medicine: the role of doctors in 2028.  The conference will explore just how far the delivery of health and care will be improved by the availability of new technology over the next decade, and what the latest predictions are by those working in the field of how this will change the way medicine will really be practised. It is aimed primarily at senior executives in the health and care world whose decisions today will hasten – or hinder – the arrival of improved technology-enabled care, though it’s relevant to anyone with an interest in knowing what’s happening at the cutting edge of how medical technology is changing medicine.

One area of focus will be training doctors to work in this new world: Professor Joanne Martin will describe how Barts are tackling this, and Dr Jean Nehme will describe how technology can specifically help train surgeons. Dr Harpreet Sood (not yet in the published programme) has kindly offered to talk about how the NHS Digital Academy fits into the picture. The future of the profession will be explored by Dr Will Cavendish, now at Arup,  and Professor Pali Hungin.

AI is a key topic running through the event, for which Dr Clare Novorol of Ada.com and Dr Richard Dybowski of Cambridge University will offer contrasting views and Dr Vishal Nangalia will look specifically at its impact on surgery. Promoting innovation is clearly key, and our distinguished ‘regular’, Professor Tony Young will give another of his high-intensity presentations on it.  Speakers on specific key relevant topics will include Professor Rachel McKendry on rapid diagnostic tests, Dr James Wollard on changing the way mental health is managed and Professor Ijeoma Uchegbu on the future of nanomedicine. Finally, wrapping it all up, Andy Wilkins, Consultant, and Chris Burghes, CEO, The Royal Free Charity, will describe the new vision they have been developing of the future of person-centred care. 

Another great day, in short, and at the usual very low cost RSM rates!

For more information, and to book, click here.

(Disclosure, this editor was involved in putting together this conference.)

Upcoming London events–a few suggestions

March 28, 2018 | by

Here are three upcoming events in London that readers may be interested in.

The Royal Society of Medicine’s mHealth Apps conference, 19th April

This, the sixth such annual event, brings together the good and the great in the medical apps world to inform you of recent and expected developments in evaluation, regulation, legislation, behaviour change and assessment, as well as some heartening stories of successful apps. Presenters will include Alexia Tonnel of NICE, Neil McGuire from MHRA and Hazel Jones from NHS Digital alongside Prof Jeremy Wyatt, giving an academic view, Julian Hitchcock, a European regulatory view and Dr Richard Brady his not-to-be-missed “Bad Apps” exploration of the dark side of medical technology.  Book here.

Bridging the Gap, 2nd May, Wellcome Collection, London

Join Commercial Directors from across the AHSN Network on Wednesday 2 May 2018 for a range of 1:1 advice sessions, workshops and networking opportunities at the AHSN Network’s fully subsidised “Bridging the Gap” event that’s open to all health technology companies.Delegates will be able to get advice about how to make their engagement with the NHS sharper and more cost effective. That means understanding how decisions are made in the NHS, who makes the decisions and how to get their attention. They’ll also provide opportunities to test and and develop your value proposition, budget impact model and your approach to evaluation and case study development. Book here.

Confirmed AHSNs taking part include: Eastern, HIN, ICHP, Kent Surrey Sussex, South West, West Midlands, West of England, UCLPartners, Yorkshire and Humber. National organisations also taking part and supporting the event include: NHS England, NICE and NIHR.

The Future of Medicine; the role of doctors in 2028, on 13th June

This, the fourth annual event on this topic from the RSM, will focus on how technology is likely to change the way medicine is delivered over the next ten years. This year we have three speakers focusing on how technology is affecting the way medicine is taught, and how medical students are being taught differently, to enable them to be most effective in this new world. Should be essential attendance for digital health executives looking for new inspiration!

Presenters include Professor Jo Martin, Professor of Pathology, Queen Mary University of London, Director of Academic Health Sciences, Barts Health NHS Trust, and President Royal College of Pathologists, and Will Cavendish who was the senior Civil Servant in the Office of Life Sciences (OLS) when George Freemen (a previous presenter at this event) was heading the OLS. Book here.

Disclosure: Charles Lowe is ex-President of the RSM’s Telemedicine Section and was involved in setting up both the above RSM events.

A fistful of topical events

November 16, 2017 | by

The London Health Technology Forum has just announced the details of its Christmas evening meeting on 13th December. Star turn will be the seasonally-appropriate Andrew Nowell, CEO of Pitpatpet who has a brilliant story to tell of how an activity tracker can unlock so many revenue sources. Attendees will also unlock mince pies, courtesy of longstanding host Baker Botts, and a roundup of key digital health changes in 2017 from this editor.

NICE Health App Briefings: NICE has finally published the end result of its review of three health apps on their Guidance & Advice list. Given that digital health is so much faster moving than pharma, it is disappointing that these apps appear to be being judged to a very high level of evidence requirement.

For example Sleepio, whose evidence for  effectiveness “is based on 5 well-designed and well-reported randomised controlled trials and 1 large prospective unpublished audit” is still judged, in terms of clinical effectiveness, as “has potential to have a positive impact for adults with poor sleep compared with standard care. There is good quality evidence that Sleepio improves sleep but the effect size varies between studies, and none of the studies compared Sleepio with face-to-face cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT‑I).”

This editor is unaware of any other app that has five good RCTs under its belt so (more…)

A few short topical items: NHS Digital, DHACA, IET, more

November 1, 2017 | by

Rob Shaw, NHS Digital’s Deputy CEO, gave a welcome talk at EHI Live on Tuesday encouraging the NHS organisations to become “intelligent” customers. To quote “We have got to make it easier for suppliers to sell into health and social care”. Let’s hope that the message is received and acted on! Until it is, the Kent Surrey and Sussex AHSN is offering help to SMEs to make that first sales – how to book, and to get more details on the event on 23rd November go here.

DHACA’s Digital Health Safety event, in partnership with Digital Health.London on 7th November is proving extremely popular, to the point where it may be oversubscribed soon, so if you want a seat for this really important event for all digital health developers and suppliers, book now.

The IET is running a TechStyle event on the evening of 22 November entitled the world of wearables aimed at people “between 14 and 114”. For today only (1 November) they are offering a special “2 for 1” deal making the already tiny cost essentially insignificant. Book here.  Hat tip to Prof Mike Short.

Prof Short has also highlighted a recent report from Agilysis looking at the role digital technology can play in delivering the vital step change our nation’s care services need. It concluded that: 

  • Leading digital professionals say lack of digital skills biggest risk to transforming care services fit for the 21st century;
  • Lack of knowledge of digital tools is largely responsible for delays in embracing new ways of working;
  • Believe digital technology could cut costs associated with social care delivery and therefore address the number one issue affecting UK social care today;
  • Digital technology can help local authorities manage both demand (improved customer satisfaction) and supply (improves multi-agency working).

There’s a great (more…)

A random selection of what’s crossed my screen recently

October 25, 2017 | by

One of the signs of autumn for this editor is the first email from Flusurvey. This is a brilliantly simple system that sends you an email every week asking if you have flu-like symptoms, then produces a map of the UK that gives advance warnings of epidemics. It costs nothing to join and is a great contribution to public health so why not sign up?. (They also have some exciting developments that may surface soon such as a small device that you blow into the connects to a smartphone and can tell almost immediately if you have flu’.)

Increasingly of concern to this editor, due to his deep involvement in digital health regulation, is who is working out how to regulate self-learning algorithms. It is therefore good to see the issue breaking cover in the general press with this article. For what it’s worth this editor’s view is that as technology begins to behave more like humans, albeit in a much faster, and narrow, way by learning as it goes along, perhaps an appropriately adapted use of the way human clinicians are examined, supervised and regulated, might be most appropriate. Sitting next to an AHSN CIO interested in the topic at a Kings Fund event last week, I was pleased to hear him offer precisely the same suggestion, so perhaps there is a little mileage in the idea. 

DHACA (disclosure: run by this editor) has just renewed its website after a long delay, and will be updating content over the next few weeks. First off is the events page advertising:

Our Digital health safety conference on 7th November at Cocoon Networks, London, is being run jointly with DigitalHealth.London – the MHRA has now confirmed they will present so we have almost all the relevant organisations and experts in the UK speaking at this event which should be essential attendance for all involved with the development and use of digital health & care. Attendance has increased substantially in the past few days so do book soon to be sure of securing a place. Much more, including an almost-finalised agenda, is here.

DHACA Day XV – we are back to our usual location at the Digital Catapult Centre on 10th January where are building an agenda of some extremely interesting speakers. To check out the agenda development and to book in advance, go here.

(more…)

Two London events worth considering

May 4, 2017 | by

A quick blog to draw your attention to two events at the Royal Society of Medicine that this editor has been involved in setting up, and that should be of interest.

The first is the Future of Medicine: the Doctor’s Role in 2027, on May 18th, which has a host of excellent speakers looking at how technology is likely to change the way medicine is practised in ten year’s time, to help clinicians, healthcare managers, academics and suppliers prepare for those changes to ensure maximum improvement in patient outcomes. Book here

The second event, in partnership with the IET, Digital Health and Insurance: a Perfect Partnership? on June 1st brings in a wide range of international speakers to explore how, by giving insurers precision over the risks they are taking, digital health is transforming health insurance, both for humans and for pets, and in the process may well result in a fundamentally different way of providing, and paying for, health in the future. Not to be missed! Book here.

As has been said before, the RSM has medical education as one of its charitable objects (the other is promoting medical advances) so their events are extremely attractively priced.

Upcoming Royal Society of Medicine telehealth/health tech events (UK)

March 21, 2017 | by

Events are blooming like daffodils in a long-awaited Spring! Here are two coming up, organized by the Royal Society of Medicine’s Telemedicine & eHealth Section. Both are full day programs held at the RSM’s offices at 1 Wimpole Street, London.

Medical apps: Mainstreaming innovation
Tuesday 4 April 2017, 9am to 5:10pm
CPD: 6 credits
Event link: www.rsm.ac.uk/events/TEH03
To discuss the regulation, the potential use and evaluation of the introduction of medical apps in a range of healthcare situations. This event is the fifth annual medical apps event run by the Section; the previous four have all been popular. The purpose of each one has been to educate forward-thinking clinicians in the benefits of using medical apps to improve patient outcomes and reduce costs. In view of the expectation that the NHS will have an mHealth assessment operation running by next April, this event will focus on mainstreaming the use of apps within the health and care services.

Digital health and insurance: A perfect partnership?
Thursday 1 June 2017, 9am to 5pm
CPD: 6 credits (applied for)
Event link: www.rsm.ac.uk/events/TEH04
This meeting will explore how digital health and insurance can be mutually beneficial by enabling insurance companies to get a better handle on the risk of their insureds. It will also explore whether these new business models might result in a new paradigm for delivering care more effectively, and to consider whether as a result the population as a whole might be better motivated to take greater responsibility for their own health and wellbeing.

More information, online learning opportunities and links on the RSM section page. (PDF).

This past week at the RSM was Tuesday’s (28 March) 28th Annual Easter Lecture given by Matthew Syed, a columnist for The Times and author of two acclaimed books, ‘Bounce’ and ‘Black Box Thinking’. He focused on the dynamics of a high-performance culture. Talent is significant but not enough. There is no substitute for a mindset that drives continuous improvement. Every marginal gain is vital and they build together to achieve performance excellence. Event link here.

Events dear boy, events…

November 29, 2016 | by

Here is a selection of events you may wish to engage with that have crossed this editor’s PC recently:

Nominate someone for a Digital Pioneer Award – nominations close on 2 December.

DigitalHealth.London in collaboration with NHS England is hosting the Digital Pioneer Awards. They are seeking out within the NHS individuals at any rank and in any role, who are deserving of an award for any of:

  • Digital leadership
  • Digital Innovation, or
  • Sustainability through digital (which means that they have been instrumental in making sure a digital implementation has been sustained enough to a point of delivering benefit).

Med-e-Tel, the Luxembourg event,  has a call out for abstracts with a deadline of 4 December.

The NHS England Clinical Entrepreneur Programme have launched recruitment for their second year cohort. Applications for all doctors will close on 9 December 2016. This intake apparently “will have limited places” (don’t they all?). Interviews will be held in March 2017 and the programme will commence in autumn 2017.

The West Midlands Health Informatics Network (WIN) will be holding its third (free) annual digital healthcare conference on 24 January 2017 at the University of Warwick. The keynote and guest speakers are:

  • Professor Theodoros N. Arvanitis, Chair in eHealth Innovation and Head of Research at The Institute of Digital Healthcare
  • John Crawford, Healthcare Industry Leader, Europe, at IBM
  • Noel Gordon, Chairman of NHS Digital
  • Harpreet Sood, Senior Fellow to the CEO at NHS England
  • Jenny Wood, Director of Adult Social Care at Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council

The aims of the conference are to:

  • showcase innovation and research in digital health, care and wellbeing;
  • enable the sharing of good practice and experience from those working in this area; and
  • promote collaboration across various settings.

The day will consist of exhibitions, poster presentations, talks/panels delivered by stakeholders, and networking sessions. With the keynote/guest speakers they have lined up, this is set to be their highest profile event to date, therefore, they ask that people should register as soon as possible here.

The Royal Society of Medicine is holding its highly popular Recent developments in digital health conference on 28 February. Speakers this year include Ali Parsa, Dame Fiona Caldicott, Shafi Ahmed,  and Sir Mark Walport – it’s going to be another great event. Last year there were disappointed late bookers because it sold out, so worth getting in early by booking here, now!

Hat tip to Prof Mike Short for some of the events.

 

Last call for London Health Technology Forum Thursday, early bird RSM mHealth 2017

November 22, 2016 | by

On the evening of Thursday 24th November, the London Health Technology Forum holds its last event of the calendar year on “Intellectual property & licensing”. This is a really critical area that this editor has seen more people lose money on because of not handling properly than in any other aspect of early start-up management – it truly is vital to think through very early on, to stop people stealing your ideas and paying an appropriate price to license them. Attendance is free; booking is here.

(The RSM’s mHealth app conference on 4th April 2017 is just about to end its early bird prices too – worth booking here anyway now, at it’s usually a sellout).

Should Australia review restrictions on use of telemedicine?

November 5, 2016 | by

Research carried out in Australia shows that a hospital with telemedicine facilities for outpatient consultations was using those facilities for only one in seven potential appointments. The retrospective study of outpatient appointments at Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane showed that in a 12-month period 2.5% of outpatient consultations were carried out by telemedicine. Although 17.5% of the appointments were potentially viable via telemedicine, a policy of permitting telemedicine only for rural residents meant that, as the majority of the viable telemedicine consultations were with metropolitan residents they were carried out as hospital visits.

This raises the question whether expansion of the use of telemedicine for hospital consultations in Australia should now be reviewed. Currently there is a geographic requirement that the patient’s location must be outside of an Australian Standard Geographic Classification Remoteness Area 1 (a city) for a telemedicine consultation  to be eligible for Medicare Benefits.

The research has been published in the Royal Society of Medicine publication Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare. The author, Monica Taylor, also presented the findings at Successes and Failures in Telemedicine 2016 in New Zealand where she was awarded the best paper award.

A clutch of interesting digital health events

September 29, 2016 | by

DHACA is holding its tenth DHACA Day on October 6th, three minutes’ walk from Leeds station. We have a wide array of fascinating speakers, with a keynote by Bethany Gildersleve, Head of Operations at NHS Digital. Membership of DHACA is free, though we have to make a small charge for lunch. For more details, and to book, go here.

The Royal Society of Medicine (RSM) is holding an event on Point-of-Care-Testing, a technology that enables radical improvement to care pathways that improve patient outcomes and can dramatically reduce costs. Keynote will be Prof Chris Price, Visiting Professor in Clinical Biochemistry, University of Oxford, widely recognised as the leading authority in the world on the topic. For more details, and to book, go here.

The RSM has an earlybird (ie even lower cost) offering for our mHealth app conference on April 4th 2017 – these rates will last until 29th November. For more details, and to book for this event, now in its fifth year & which has serially sold out, go here.

The RSM is also has another long-running and regularly very well-attended event on 28th February entitled Recent Developments in Digital Health. Last February’s presentation by Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of Google DeepMind, is still being talked about. Details and booking here.

Finally the London Health Technology Forum has its first Autumn meeting on 20th October, covering the true story of how a start-up made its first sale to the NHS from both the point of view of the seller and from that of the NHS buyer. Attendance is completely free – book here. (While you’re at it, you may want to book for the Christmas Pitch too, as it’s certain to be fully booked before it takes place on 24th November.)

Disclosure: all the above have had some involvement, to a greater or lesser extent, from this editor.

Last minute events, through to the end of 2016

May 17, 2016 | by

We have events this week that you can still sign up for/attend, through to November!

On the evening of 18th May, as we have previously covered, there is a free two hour webinar on telementoring surgeons – watch how it’s done during operations by experts. Register here.

For the 19th May, come and hear world-class speakers, introduced by George Freeman, Minister for Life Sciences, talking about the Future of medicine; the doctor’s role in 2025 at the Royal Society of Medicine. More info is here – online booking is closed though as many people now do at the RSM, you can sign up at the door on the day.

On 20th May, again as we have previously covered, the SIHI event at the University of Portsmouth is entitled Safe and effective medicines: Informatics for best practice. More info here.

Evangelia Balanou has kindly pointed out that the Aging2.0 (sic) Global Startup Search is coming to London on 14th June. Details of the Search are here, if you want to pitch. Note there are also European events in Barcelona, Berlin & Brussels. To book for the London event go here (note special free ticket category for 65+).

Also in June, the RSM is running another in its very successful big data series, entitled big data, clouds, and the internet of healthy things on June 2nd. Details here.

Finally, looking further out, the RSM is also repeating an event last run three years ago, again to a sellout audience, entitled point of care testing: disruptive innovation. is the NHS ready for it yet? (Especially eagle eyed readers with a good memory will notice the addition of yet.) This aims to demonstrate the extraordinary effectiveness of testing at the point of care (rather than sending samples for lab analysis) which can transform the cost of delivering care at the same time as greatly improving patient outcomes. Do check the programme out here, and book!

Two RSM events of interest on medicine’s future and Big Data/IoT (UK)

April 20, 2016 | by

Make a place in your calendar for two Royal Society of Medicine full day events coming up in May and June. Both organized by the Telemedicine and eHealth Section. Hat tip to Charlotte Cordrey, Event Team Manager, RSM

The future of medicine – the role of doctors in 2025
Thursday 19 May 2016  (Chaired by our own Editor Charles Lowe)

Big data 2016 (Clouds and the Internet of Things)
Thursday 2 June 2016

 

RSM hosts digital health event 25 February

January 19, 2016 | by

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/RSM.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Recent developments in digital health 2016
Thursday 25 February 2016
Royal Society of Medicine, 1 Wimpole Street, London, W1G 0AE

Presented by the Royal Society of Medicine’s Telemedicine and eHealth Section (presided by our Editor Charles), this full day conference is open to the public and provides a global perspective from leaders within digital health. Keynoters are Mustafa Suleyman from Google’s Artificial Intelligence branch, DeepMind, and Dr Euan Ashley from Stanford University in California who leads Apple’s MyHeartCounts. Rates are reasonable: £50-115 for RSM members and £60-175 for non-members, plus 6 CPD credits. More information and registration on the RSM website here and download the flyer here.

Upcoming RSM Telemedicine events into early June:
Medical apps: Mainstreaming innovation–Thursday 7 April 2016

The future of medicine – the role of doctors in 2025–Thursday 19 May 2016

Big data 2016–Thursday 2 June 2016