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

♻️ Digital teams from Midlands Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (MPFT) and Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Health Informatics Service (SSHIS) have teamed up to recycle NHS devices reaching end-of-life, in an effort to tackle digital poverty. Instead of throwing out old tech, MPFT collects it and hands it over to SSHIS, who wipe any remaining data and NHS software before gifting it back into the community, including NHS patients, school children and local charities.

🧫 Scientists have created a new, blood-based “bio-cooperative” material based on blood that can repair bones, paving the way for personalised regenerative treatments for injuries and disease. Researchers from the University of Nottingham used peptide molecules to create living materials that boost tissue regeneration and can be easily assembled, manipulated, and even 3D printed. The research has been published in Advanced Materials.

📺 YouTube is launching “first aid information shelves” in the UK aimed at making step-by-step explainer videos for basic first aid and emergency care. The streaming platform has partnered with the NHS, St John Ambulance and British Red Cross to create informative videos on how to perform CPR and how to stop bleeding, amongst others. They’ve been created specifically to help people find actionable information without having to read or listen to complex instructions.

✅ Digital health startup Evaro has secured Care Quality Commission (CQC) registration. Evaro’s digital health platform integrates with NHS systems and provides AI-supported clinical and drug prescription services. The addition of CQC registration will enable Evaro to expand into offering more comprehensive healthcare services, including AI-supported medical consultations.

🤖 Johns Hopkins University researchers have trained a surgical robot to perform procedures as skilfully as human doctor using surgery videos. Using the same machine learning tech as ChatGPT, the team trained the da Vinci Surgical System to carry out tasks like suturing and tissue manipulation, eliminating the need to manually program the robot for each technique. The researchers hope their work will help pave the way to fully autonomous robotic surgery.

❓Did you know?

Two-thirds (66%) of digital health professionals report being confused by compliance requirements, according to a survey compliance software provider Naq. 

Naq surveyed 1,000 “digital health innovators” to understand the pressures they faced meeting regulatory standards. Of the 50 that responded, 61% said they struggled to find enough hours in the day to meet compliance requirements, while 47% said they found it difficult to allocate budget to compliance services. Even when standards were met, 42% reported finding supplying compliance documentation to customers a challenge.

📖 What we’re reading

The Health Foundation’s report, Trust and Confidence in Technology-Enabled Care, published 14 November, explores the barriers to adopting digital technology in the NHS and the importance of building trust to accelerate implementation.

Authors Libby Keck and Spela Godec highlight the need for strong foundations in data accuracy and safety but note that these alone are not enough to secure user trust. Key to successful adoption, they suggest, is involving patients and staff early in the design process, making them feel the technology supports, rather than replaces, existing care. 

The report also stresses the value of partnerships across industry and the voluntary sector to meet diverse user needs, calling for NHS leaders to support a collaborative approach to digital change.

“Digital change is often understood simplistically. Too much focus is put on the technologies themselves rather than how to redesign care models or the testing and iteration required to derive the benefits new technologies can deliver,” the report says.

It adds: “To truly enable digital transformation, services need to work with patients, staff and the developers to ensure technologies are user centred and challenge driven.”

28 November, virtual event – NHS IT Infrastructure 2024