Royal Wolverhampton partners with Babylon for digital-first integrated care

Babylon Health has announced a 10-year partnership with The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust to develop a new model of digital-first integrated care.

The partnership will benefit 300,000 people across Wolverhampton and surrounding areas, Babylon claimed.

Patients and staff at the trust will use Babylon’s technology to manage care through a free app, which will connect primary, secondary and community care.

Patients will gain greater control over their own health, faster treatment, fewer trips to hospital, treatment from the patient’s own home and greater access to their own data.

Babylon’s symptom checker, video consultation and real-time monitoring technology will help provide 24-7 digital support to aid recovery.

Plus the suppliers national network of clinicians will be used to increase the staff available to care for patients.

The app will also free up clinicians time to spend with more complex patients, Babylon said.

David Loughton, chief executive of the trust, said: “We know from our active engagement with patients of all ages and backgrounds that they are keen to use technology that will improve access and give them greater control of their own health, wellbeing and social inclusion.

“We also know from our engagement with clinicians that releasing time to care for our sickest patients is a top priority and there is consensus that this could be facilitated by technology, if we partner with the best and work collaboratively and openly.

“This partnership with Babylon is rooted in clinical and patient co-design and we recognise that we are going on a journey together to transform our care delivery and our workforce.

“As medicine transforms over the next 10 years, and cutting-edge technology improves, it is critical that the NHS develops a digitally empowered workforce. With the trust’s end-to-end care portfolio this is a huge opportunity for us and Babylon to constructively tackle all of these things together.

“I am confident that this won’t be just good for our patients, it will benefit the wider NHS through early prevention, treatment and the sharing of our learning.”

Ali Parsa, chief executive and founder of Babylon, added: “We are extremely proud of this exciting 10-year partnership with Royal Wolverhampton which will benefit patients and the NHS as a whole.

“We have over 1,000 AI experts, clinicians, engineers and scientists who will be helping to make digital-first integrated care a reality and provide fast, effective, proactive care to patients. Together with Royal Wolverhampton, we can demonstrate this works and help the NHS lead healthcare across the world.”

The new services are expected to go live by the end of 2020.

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The app will provide patients access to:

• Clinical consultations with The Royal Wolverhampton and Babylon doctors and specialist nurses, while also giving patients control of appointment booking and prescriptions
• Personal Clinical Records, which allow patients to see their own medical information and watch their consultations again
• Health Assessment, which creates a health report based on a user’s medical history and lifestyle and displays it with a ‘digital twin’
• AI Health Assistant, which gives users medical information and triage advice, based on epidemiological data, about their symptoms
• Health Management, which generates personalised care plans to support the proactive care of patients with chronic diseases
• Monitor, which can use real-time health information from wearable tech and connected apps
• Rehab following hospital admission, with fast remote clinical responses to help recovery and avoid readmissions

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