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 

❤ Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (LHCH) has joined an elite group of hospitals around the world who have successfully validated against the HIMSS (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society) international EMRAM Stage 7 standards. EMRAM – the Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model – assesses a health facility’s adoption and maturity of its digital capabilities. Being validated at Level 7 confirms that LHCH has achieved the highest international quality standard for excellence in digital and data to support outstanding patient care and services. A rigorous on-site assessment took place this week, with LHCH being the first trust in Europe to be assessed against the new and more extensive Stage 7 HIMSS standards. 

???? NHS England has published guidance on network segmentation for healthcare staff members responsible for the architecture, design, implementation and maintenance of their network security, sharing oversight of how network segmentation can prevent or mitigate lateral movement across a network in the event of a cyber attack. Network segmentation is described as improving network security “by creating smaller network segments of assets grouped by a defined criteria and granting access only to traffic authorised by an approved security policy.” 

⚗ Sonrai Analytics, an AI precision medicine company enabling advanced analytics to advance the development of therapeutics, and Candel Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing multi-modal biological immunotherapies, today announced a strategic partnership to accelerate the development of novel cancer therapeutics. The partnership brings Sonrai’s innovative cloud-based AI technology to Candel’s pipeline, allowing Candel to integrate and analye clinical trial data to support the identification of predictive biomarkers of response to treatment. Candel will utilise Sonrai’s AI technology platform, Sonrai Discovery, to integrate and analyse its diverse data types, including multi-omics, imaging, and clinical data. Sonrai Discovery will enable Candel to create scalable workflows and visualizations, simplifying and accelerating biomarker discovery, management and analysis through efficient biomarker shortlisting and reporting. The platform will facilitate the interrogation and sharing of multi-omics data to allow researchers at Candel to advance the development of cancer therapeutics without data silos and duplication of effort. 

???? Abbott today announced new data from two real-world studies, showing people with Type 2 diabetes using GLP-1 medicines and FreeStyle Libre technology together had greater improvement in their HbA1c when compared to those treated with GLP-1 medicines only. HbA1c is a measurement of a person’s average blood glucose level over three months. These findings were presented at the 17th International Conference on Advanced Technologies & Treatments for Diabetes (ATTD) held in Florence, Italy, on March 6, 2024. 

???? A new cellphone app developed by physician-scientists at UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh, which use AI to accurately diagnose ear infections, or acute otitis media (AOM), could help decrease unnecessary antibiotic use in young children, according to new research published in JAMA Pediatrics. AOM is one of the most common childhood infections for which antibiotics are prescribed but can be difficult to discern from other ear conditions without intensive training. The new AI tool, which makes a diagnosis by assessing a short video of the ear drum captured by an otoscope connected to a cellphone camera, offers a simple and effective solution that could be more accurate than trained clinicians. 

❓ Did you know that 

Workplace injuries are increasing in the UK. In fact, The Health and Safety Executive found that since 2018-2019, there’s been a 25% increase. Despite this, 38% of Brits are forced to work through the pain because they cannot afford to take time off, according to a new report by National Accident Helpline. 

???? What we’re reading 

Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death in both the UK and worldwide. For several coronary and valvular conditions, timely surgical or catheter-based interventions improve survival and quality of life. Yet the NHS faces an unprecedented backlog of over 370,000 patients awaiting critical cardiac procedures, leading to over 30,000 excess deaths. This Nature piece describes a novel strategy for digitally supported prioritisation for critical cardiovascular procedures, as well as the potential ethical concerns related to this new clinical and population health pathway. 

???? This week’s events 

7-8 March, online – Nuffield Trust Summit 2024