Predictive risk software launched for NHS

New predictive risk software which will provide the NHS with an ‘early warning’ system to help some patients avoid hospital admission was launched today by the Department of Health.

The software, first reported by EHI Primary Care in July, uses a wide range of patient information to work out who is most at risk. Data such as the patients’ age, type of illness, and recent contacts with the NHS are processed to work out which patients are most in need of care. Once prioritised, NHS care teams can then work with patients to help them maintain their health and avoid a visit to hospital.

Health minister Lord Warner said:“The NHS is developing into a service that not only provides excellent care when a person becomes sick, but also works with patients to help them maintain their health and stay out of hospital.

“In January, we announced sweeping changes to the way in which NHS and social care organisations deliver care to people with long term conditions. As these changes are implemented, we are seeing excellent work going on across the country. This new system is a great innovation that will provide NHS staff with additional help in this important work.”

The project is being run by the King’s Fund along with New York University and Health Dialog Data Service, a US health data analysis company.It was commissioned by Essex Strategic Health Authority acting as lead commissioner for the 28 SHAs, the Department of Health and the NHS Modernisation Agency.

Essex SHA medical director Paul Watson said: “We are very pleased and excited about the new software. This will really help us improve services by targeting the right patients. This will then help prevent patients’ clinical condition deteriorating to the point that they need emergency hospital admission.”

King’s Fund chief executive Niall Dickson said: “Providing better care for people with long-term conditions is one of the greatest challenges facing the NHS. We know that we need to target help at those most at risk, but until now there was no robust way of achieving this.

“We hope this programme will be more effective than previous techniques at identifying high-risk patients. The prize would be immense – better care of a higher quality delivered earlier to patients, fewer unnecessary hospital admissions and better use of NHS resources.”

The new software is available free to the NHS from 1 September. It can be downloaded from the King’s Fund website here .

It will also be further developed over the autumn to incorporate data from community sources in addition to hospital data; this will enhance its capability further. This final version should be available at the beginning of 2006. A conference about the risk prediction tool is being held on 27 October in central London. Details on the King’s Fund website. 

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