Digital Health Coffee Time Briefing ☕ 

Your morning summary of digital health news, information and events to know about if you want to be “in the know”.   

???? News  

????‍⚖️ Expressions of interest are now open for the West Yorkshire Digital Ambassador Programme. The programme, born from a partnership between the West Yorkshire Digital Primary Care Collaborative and Health Innovation Yorkshire & Humber, on behalf of the West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board, will run virtually from early 2024. Aimed at the primary care workforce, the programme is designed to strengthen the digital innovation, transformation, and improvement skills of the primary care workforce, covering a wide array of topics and features guest speakers who are experts in their respective fields. 

???? Telemedicine is associated with greater physician time spent working in the EHR, both during and outside of scheduled hours, mostly documenting visits and not messaging patients, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). Health systems may need to adjust productivity expectations for physicians and develop strategies to address EHR documentation burden for physicians. 

???? Emory University is embarking on a new initiative that will unite the power of machine learning and big data to transform the ways in which health care systems prevent, diagnose, treat and cure diseases on a global scale. Launching this month under the umbrella of Emory’s AI.Humanity initiative, the Emory Empathetic AI for Health Institute will utilise AI and computing power to discern patterns in vast amounts of data and make predictions that improve patient health outcomes in diseases such as lung, prostate and breast cancer, heart disease, diabetes and more. While AI is already being deployed to improve diagnoses and treatment for numerous health conditions, the resounding impact AI can have on health care is just beginning. 

????‍⚕️ Little is known about the evidence to support prescription digital therapeutics, which are digital tools that rely primarily on software for diagnosis or treatment that have indications for use regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and require a clinician’s prescription. The first retrospective cross-sectional analysis of clinical studies of twenty prescription digital therapeutics authorised by the FDA and available on the market as of November 2022 found that just two prescription digital therapeutics had been evaluated in at least one study that was randomised and blinded and that used other rigorous standards of evidence. Two-thirds of clinical studies of prescription digital therapeutics were conducted on a postmarket basis, with less rigorous standards of evidence than the standards used in premarket studies. More than half of studies did not report data on participants’ race, and more than 80% did not report their ethnicity.   

????‍???? Newcross Healthcare, one of the largest technology enabled workforce providers, today announces several senior appointments as it accelerates it’s focus on the technology enabled care sector.  Thomas Michalak joins as head of product design. He has worked in rare diseases, healthcare partnership engagement and patient programs, driving digital innovation and adoption across organisations such as Pfizer, Novo Nordisk and the NHS. Paul Green is appointed vice president of product management and has over 20 years’ experience in online and customer service industries, with the last 10 years focused on product management driving increased user adoption of digital products. Sanjay Pandya, who has over 20 years’ experience working in information and security in highly regulated sectors such as banking and finance, joins as chief information security officer (CISO).

❓ Did you know that?  

The UK ranks 4th overall in the OECD’s Global AI Index, which measures implementation, innovation and investment in AI across all sectors, including health. The UK ranked in the top 10 of 62 countries in the index categories of commercial investment, government strategy, research, development and talent, although it ranked 24th for infrastructure and 40th for operating environment. The index was published in the OECD’s latest Health at a Glance report for 2023. 

???? What we’re reading 

The World Health Organization (WHO) has published the second edition of the Classification of digital interventions, services, and applications in health. This taxonomy supports the health, development, research, and technology sectors to precisely document and describe the uses of digital technology to address needs and advance health goals.   

???? This week’s events 

 10 November, Novotel London West – Pharma Customer Engagement Europe 2023