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

🔬 A case-finding tool for liver disease has been awarded Class I clearance from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). HepatoSIGHT systematically scans blood records to identify patients at higher risk of developing liver disease, which currently claims more than 10,000 lives every year. Following its clearance by MHRA, the tool is now available for clinical use across the UK.

🦜 Smart homecare platform Birdie has published its mid-year review, revealing that it supported more than 23 million home care visits in the first half of 2024. In total, 1.6 million medication alerts issued by Birdie were resolved within 72 hours, a 63% increase compared to H1 2023. There has also been an uptick in digital observations being recorded, Birdie said, which help care professionals provide more personalised care, thus reducing hospital visits.

📲 Suffolk and North East Essex Integrated Care Board (ICB) has rolled out an app for women who have difficulty finding reliable health information online. CONNECTPlus is a free app offering NHS-certified advice and guidance and was launched following an engagement with 1,200 people from Suffolk and North East Essex about their experiences of women’s health services. Topics covered by the app include conception, cervical screening, pelvic health, menstrual problems and more.

📝 Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust has extended its contract for digital and remote psychological therapies with Xyla Health, which has been a provider for the trust since 2023. The new contract is set to run until the end of March 2025.

💡 Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH) will trial a range of technologies under efforts to establish a national centre of excellence for rehabilitation. Equipment tracking, artificially intelligent CCTV and voice-activated environmental controls are some of the technologies that will be used to support patients undergoing intensive rehabilitation when the new National Rehabilitation Centre opens in Summer 2025. 

❓ Did you know?

Just 15 minutes of exercise a day is enough to significantly improve health and wellbeing, according to a study by the University of South Australia, published in Healthcare on 24 June 2024.

The study ‘Evaluation of the “15 Minute Challenge”: A Workplace Health and Wellbeing Program‘, analysed data from 11,575 participants across 73 companies who followed the 15 Minute Challenge, a corporate m-health initiative aimed at promoting regular movement and fitness in the workplace.

It found that a “gamified” wellness program, where employees engaged in team-based challenges using a mobile app to track and compete in activities, increased daily physical activity by 12 minutes and helped 95% of participants meet or exceed activity guidelines. 

Participants also reported improvements in fitness (14%), energy (12%), overall health (8%), sleep quality (8%) and mood (7.1%).

📖 What we’re reading

The NHS Confederation’s Primary Care Network has published a report highlighting the evolving role of primary care provider collaboratives, noting significant variations in their development and challenges around sustainability.

‘Realising the potential of primary care provider collaboratives‘, published on 20 August 2024, explores how primary care collaboratives have formed over the past two years and their potential for improving integrated care.

While some collaboratives have made progress in enhancing coordination and service delivery, the report noted that many face challenges related to governance and consistent funding. It also found that for these collaboratives to thrive, there needs to be a “shift from voice to doing,” moving beyond representation to actively shaping and delivering care.

The report notes: “Without dedicated investment and resource to support their development and ensure parity with other collaboratives, they risk faltering at the starting line”.

🚨 Upcoming events

10 September, virtual event – How can we ensure meaningful community and public participation in the governance and implementation of the EU’s AI Act?