Industry news in brief

The latest Digital Health News industry round-up includes news on a new digital app library for Sefton, investment for a health tech consultancy and a software launch for home care start-ups. 

Wysa and Mayden collaborate for mental health etriage

Wysa, an AI chatbot for mental health, has partnered with Mayden, a digital care record provider, to improve patients’ experience with mental health therapy.

The partnership will see a new etriage system created using Wysa’s AI chatbot service. This will be integrated with Mayden’s iaptus, a digital care record for psychological therapy services.

It will provide a safe environment for patients and deliver the first steps towards patient therapy while individuals wait for an in-person therapy appointment.

Patients will be able to self-refer for talking therapy services using the interactive digital chatbot. For the first time in the UK, Wysa will also share real-time patient data with clinicians while patients wait for talk therapy, which will help to identify those at high risk of deterioration and flag them for crisis attention.

Using the Wysa AI chatbot for interactive guidance, patients will complete NHS talking therapy self-referral questions. The questions will be broken up with self-care activities to improve the patient experience and the completion rate.

Wysa’s etriage system will then securely transmit data to Mayden’s iaptus so that it can be transferred to a clinician for assessment. While patients wait for an appointment, they will be able to use the chatbot for evidence-based CBT self-care modules, and any high risk responses from a patient will be flagged for urgent intervention.

Cloud21 receives investment from Tegria

Cloud21, a health tech consultancy for the NHS, has received a major investment boost from Tegria – an international health tech company and one of the largest health and care providers in the US.

The investment will enable Cloud21 to scale up its digital transformation services which support health and social care organisations meet their own digital transformation ambitions.

Cloud21 will leverage Tegria’s global 3,500-strong team of clinicians, technologists, scientists and strategists, as well as its extensive international end-to-end digital strategy and support services across health and care.

The companies have already started working together to help accelerate organisations’ digital maturity.

Sefton gains new online health app library

Health and care partners across the NHS, local authority and voluntary, community and faith sector have joined forces with the Organisation for the Review of Care and Health Applications (ORCHA) to develop an online health app library for Sefton residents.

Thousands of accredited health apps have been listed on sefton.orcha.co.uk, including apps to help keep people active, support mental health, manage long-term conditions like heart disease, asthma or diabetes and more.

Dr Peter Chamberlain, local GP and chair of NHS South Sefton Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), said:  “This is a fantastic development for people in Sefton. Health apps can provide people with important information to help them manage their health conditions and live healthier and happier lives through exercise and healthy living. The ORCHA Health App Library makes it quicker and easier to access safe, accredited health and wellbeing apps, which can make a real difference to people’s lives.”

Sefton residents will be able to access the support they need with the confidence that the apps have been carefully assessed and considered. In addition, health and care professionals are being trained on how to use the app library to select the right app to support their patients.

Liz Ashall Payne, CEO or ORCHA, added: “ORCHA is the world’s leading health app evaluation and distribution organisation and works with the NHS and health professionals across the UK. We continuously review all of the apps on the ORCHA health app library, ensuring that they meet stringent NHS guidelines, to provide health information you can rely on.”

NHS Gloucestershire CCG launches digital support-finder for children’s mental health

NHS Gloucestershire CCG has partnered with Mace and Menter and Made Tech to launch a digital mental health tool for children and young people’s mental health services.

The tool will make it easier to understand, find and access the necessary support, acting as a single point for young people’s mental health services. It will ensure young patients have more choice and control over their care, while health practitioners will be supported with accurate advice and signposting for referral services.

The support finder takes people through a series of questions to better understand how they are feeling and what support might be useful. Once completed, users will be signposted to the most relevant service for their need and provided with mental health support information. Results are made available both via the website and through SMS text messaging to ensure that young people don’t need a computer in order to receive them.

Helen Ford, programme director for integrated commissioning at NHS Gloucestershire CCG, said: “Our new resource acts as a virtual helping hand to guide people to the right support. The support-finder allows children and young people to make informed choices about the services they use. While we developed the resource with young people in mind, we expect a range of professionals, parents and carers to use it too.”

The baseline architecture and codebase was developed under open standards principles and is available to other NHS trusts to use for free. This allows trusts with similar patient needs to reuse and adapt the solution with no vendor lock-in.

Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust future-proofs clinical pathology pathway

Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has streamlined its clinical pathology pathways processes through TrakCare Lab Enterprise from InterSystems.

The trust first implemented the platform in 2021, and since then has gained new visibility into a range of lab processes, including demand, cost, workflow, equipment usage and quality measures. With this improved visibility the teams at the trust are empowered to make better informed and data-driven business decisions.

Gloucestershire Hospitals is benefitting from real-time visibility and traceability of patient tests, in the first-of-type deployment of the platform. It’s also enhancing efficiencies thanks to robust workforce planning capabilities.

In addition, the platform is addressing the limitations of traditional laboratory information management systems (LIMS), which often sees them fall short in supporting efforts to review operational performance and effective planning.

Philippa Moore, consultant medical microbiologist at Gloucester Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “This is the first step on our digital pathology journey and has opened the door to improvements across the department and our hospitals, integrating and working with our existing systems.

“Supported by the hard work of our entire team and our colleagues at InterSystems, it has transformed the way we operate at Gloucester. Having gained more visibility into the entire pathology process, we can now see where backlogs are accumulating and flex staffing accordingly, allowing us to efficiently meet peaks in demand.”

As part of the trust’s five-year plan the platform will be further developed, including blood transfusion medicine.

The Access Group launches software package for new care providers

Access Health, Support & Care has launched Care Foundations, a software package for start-up home care providers to support digitising processes needed to register, establish and grow their business.

The launch comes at a time when the health and social care secretary, Sajid Javid, is calling for 80 per cent of social care providers to be using digital care records by March 2024 and providing a £150million funding boost to reach this ambition.

Care Foundations is designed to help businesses seamlessly integrate specialist health and social care technology into the day-to-day running of the business. It includes three bespoke packages starting at essential up to premium, and provides information on aspects such as policies and procedures, recruitment and care plans.

Steve Sawyer, managing director at Access Health and Social Care, said: “Access Care Foundations will make the road to implementing digital processes much easier for new and growing care providers. This tool supports the vision of the recent announcement from Health and Social Care Secretary Sajid Javid and will make that transition to digitising care records much easier.”

He continued: “The aim of this tool is to simplify establishing a business as well as provide a space to continue elevating current processes with support and guidance. Each package has different options that can cater to different levels of care, this means there is always an option for each provider depending on their business needs.”

The software uses an integrated system delivering tools to monitor and improve care quality. It’s particularly useful for start-ups who may yet lack the knowledge of specific protocols and regulations.

DSS acquires My Meds and Me

Drug Safety and Pharmacovigilance Services Solutions (DSS), a Stanley Capital-backed portfolio company, has acquired My Meds and Me Ltd (MMM).

The acquisition by DSS will accelerate the delivery of high-quality safety insights and provide an end-to-end solution to simplify data capture of adverse events and product quality.

MMM’s Reportum platform will enable DSS to provide a centralised solution for multi-lingual data capture across intake sources. Thanks to the development of the tech-enabled model, the DSS platform will be able to process higher volumes of data in a standardised and efficient model.

Humaira Qureshi, CEO of DSS, said: “The acquisition of MMM will give a further boost to the high-quality service offering we are delivering to our clients, which include some of the world’s largest and most innovative pharmaceutical companies, with the support and investment of SCP.

“The acquisition aligns with the shared strategy of DSS and SCP to secure M&A transactions that grow the technology-enabled platform and broaden the client-focused service offering.”

MMM CEO Andrew Rut added: “MMM is proud to be joining DSS to continue delivering the firm’s high-quality service offering. DSS’ existing well-established, sustainable, and efficient model will support MMM in expanding its uniquely sensible and cost-effective provision of pharmacovigilance solutions.”