Industry news in brief

The latest Digital Health News industry round-up features news Sensely has rebranded Ask NHS to AskFirst and international news with Slovenia launching a Covid passport using Better.

Multitone added to IT framework

NHS Commercial Solutions has added Multitone to its Patient and Healthcare Communications and Related IT Services framework.

Multitone, a specialist developer of integrated communications systems, is now available to NHS trusts and other public services through the framework, aimed at making it easier to implement a range of IT communications needs, including instant messaging.

The commercial arrangement – including £700 million of funding – aims to help to further modernise the communications systems of the UK’s hospital and community services.

Multitone was the first supplier of a closed-loop paging system to the NHS and works to improve messaging in hospital systems.

Peter Lomax, Multitone’s sales and marketing director said: “Messaging apps are here to stay. However, not all apps are suitable for professional use, raising natural concerns for security, data protection and accountability.

“That is why Multitone has developed various messaging apps for the NHS and other organisations, combining paging practicality with smart phone technology.

“Our solutions such as Multitone Appear, Appear Lite and Appear Crew meet various communications needs, and have been developed for emergency services and other healthcare professionals. They are simple to use, integrate with other comms and most importantly, are secure and reliable.”

Sensely rebrands Ask NHS to AskFirst

Digital healthcare company Sensely has rebranded its Ask NHS brand to AskFirst.

AskFirst will continue to serve as an integrated entry point for access to myriad of NHS information and service offerings, while also expanding into partnerships with additional services such as social prescribing and local authority sectors, according to a statement from the company.

The Sensely platform uses robotic process automation to help manage demand from patients and support them with health information.

AskFirst features a virtual health assistant, which offers patients the ability complete symptom checking, search healthcare content, schedule appointments, and retrieve important information about local healthcare services.

Adam Odessky, CEO and co-founder of Sensely, said: “Sensely is grateful for the results created from our more than six-year history working with NHS, and the new AskFirst name and brand is in-line with the continued expansion and evolution of our offering.

“We look forward to making a bigger difference for more people who need support, and to working with additional partners across the United Kingdom.”

Slovenia launches Covid Passport with Better

Slovenia has launched its EU Digital Covid Certificate powered by Better.

The system was built on top of a clinical data repository (CDR) as a core component of the National Centralised Patient Data Registry.

It generates a certificate based on the persistent data available in Slovenia’s national CDR. This rapid development of a citizen certificate was made possible by an open-platform approach, which was adopted by Slovenia and separated the data from the application.

The certificate document is available on-demand in digital or PDF form, with QR codes.

Janez Poklukar, Ministry of Health of the Republic of Slovenia, said: “We are happy that we already had the suitable IT infrastructure in place in Slovenia. It allowed us to respond quickly and provide the necessary digital solutions that support the efforts of medical and epidemiological teams to manage the pandemic, as well as to allow our citizens to travel freely.”

seca and Imprivata partner for better user authentication

seca, a supplier of medical scales and measuring systems, has partnered with Imprivata to improve user authentication.

The more digitisation advances in everyday hospital life, the more touchpoints nursing staff will have to authenticate themselves via proximity readers, barcode or fingerprint scanners, keyboards and palm scanners.

In the future, facilities working with Imprivata Medical Device Access and seca’s integration solutions will benefit from a unified authentication process – the common interface enables fast and secure user and patient authentication prior to each seca measurement and weighing process using existing Imprivata credentials.

This eliminates the need for different logon procedures for different devices such as computers, medical scales or vital sign monitors.

Dr Richard Mietz, team manager integration solutions at seca, said: “The goal of our collaboration was to further simplify and accelerate the workflow of integrating medical scale and measurement systems.

“With Imprivata, we have a partner at our side who is an expert in the field of identity and access management and has many years of experience in this area. Our customers and patients alike will benefit from our cooperation and we are very happy about this partnership.”

Elemental Software named among UK’s top health innovators

Derry-based digital prescribing solution Elemental Software has been named one of the UK’s top health tech innovators in the annual HealthTech50, put together by Business Cloud magazine.

The company came in at number eight and was the only Northern Ireland-based business to feature on the list.

Jennifer Neff, Elemental Software chief executive, said: “This really highlights all of the hard work, determination and passion that goes into Elemental. And it is recognition for all of our team, our partners and our customers.

“Our focus remains firmly on our primary mission, halting avoidable health inequalities, and as a result, we continue to see a dramatic increase in the adoption of Elemental right across the UK and Ireland.”

Calls for innovative companies seeking funding of up to £5m

Spex Capital, a specialist digital health and medtech investment firm, has joined forces with MedCity to identify and fund promising health tech ventures globally.

The exclusive partnership will support several calls for innovative companies seeking investment, with the first call launching in September focussing on companies wanting seed and Series A stage investment.

The investment firm will invest in the most viable of those companies, and with a £100 million fundraising target, Spex Capital aims implement change in digital healthcare. The most promising companies will be offered tickets between £500k and £5million.

Spex Capital founder and managing director Claudio D’Angelo said: “There is an incredible pool of talent with unexpressed potential in digital health and medtech, but many innovative ventures in the sector don’t get access to the appropriate opportunities in their early stages due to lack of funds and track record.

“I’m glad to be working again with MedCity on an exclusive basis with my new venture. We’ve fine-tuned the process over the years to deliver a more efficient reviewal process and I’m excited to see what this call will yield in terms of talent”