Guy’s and St Thomas’ rolls out Covid screening and recording app

Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust has begun using an app which allows hospital visitors to submit their Covid-19 tests at home.

The ClearScreen app has been developed by TestCard, the first ever winners of Digital Health Rewired Pitchfest, in collaboration with lateral flow test manufacturer, SureScreen.

The solution involves SureScreen’s nasal swab antigen tests being used alongside TestCard’s smartphone app which captures and analyses the lateral flow test and turns smart phones into clinical grade scanners. As a result, staff are able to send results directly to the Electronic Patient Record (EPR) quickly and simply.

Current guidance asks that visitors to English hospitals take a lateral flow test ahead of their visit and present the results to staff. With ClearScreen, visitors to Guy’s and St Thomas’ will be invited by email to download the app and authenticate themselves with a unique QR token.

Visitors then carry out the test at home using the app to record the results in the hospital portal for reporting and compliance purposes. The app will include training on how to self-administer the test.

Dr Rahul Batra, clinical innovations and disruptive technologies lead in the Centre for Clinical Infection and Diagnostics Research at Guy’s and St Thomas’ said: “Using this digital reading application we were able to realise the potential diagnostic, infection control and operational benefit inpatient Lateral Flow testing could offer.

“In real time, the ClearScreen team were able to react and provide solutions to the numerous issues that arise in developing and deploying new technology within the NHS, at speed and during an unprecedented global pandemic.”

Adding lateral flow testing into the clinical environment has meant hospital staff have to had to spend time recording test information rather than spend it with patients. The ClearScreen app has meant this administrative task for staff at Guy’s and St Thomas’ is removed.

Andrew Botham, chief scientific officer and founder at TestCard said, “We’re delighted that our new ClearScreen app is alleviating the time pressure on NHS staff, who are already stretched so incredibly thin.

“Thanks to this innovative approach visitors can perform the testing with confidence, whilst ensuring the results produced are reliable, cutting out stress for them and hospital staff. For inpatients, the solution tests and records results with a level of accuracy and traceability hospitals do not currently have for tests of this kind.”