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 new digital dashboard is making it easier for clinicians to gain key insights into spinal procedures across NHS Wales. Digital Health and Care Wales developed the dashboard with the Welsh Value in Health Centre to help reduce waiting times for spinal surgery and identify areas for improvement. The dashboard looks at patient re-admissions, emergency re-admissions, returns to theatre and length of stay across health boards, with the aim of bringing various data together to understand what’s happening in the system. 

📣 GenesisCare has announced plans to open its largest UK Comprehensive Cancer Centre in Leeds, marking its 15th facility in the UK. The centre will feature advanced radiotherapy platforms capable of real-time adaptive radiotherapy using MRI and CT imaging, allowing for personalised treatment tailored to individual patients. It will also be one of few centres globally offering adaptive radiotherapy to all eligible patients, including advanced imaging, a systemic therapy suite for chemotherapy, targeted therapies and immunotherapy, as well as outpatient consulting services.

🚀 Canadian healthcare services company UniDoc Health has presented its self-contained virtual clinic at the Annual Assembly of Italian Municipalities in Turin. The H3 Health Cube is designed as a self-contained virtual clinic offering AI-powered diagnostics and medical devices designed for remote consultations. It can offer “instant” test results and integrate with hospitals’ electronic health records (EHRs), helping to improve access to healthcare in underserved areas, such as rural regions.

⏱️ Health tech company Ultrahuman has launched a fertility tracking feature for its Ring AIR wearable. The Cycle & Ovulation PowerPlug uses biomarkers like skin temperature, resting heart rate and heart rate variability to predict ovulation windows more accurately than traditional methods. Available through the companion app, the feature aims to simplify fertility tracking by eliminating the need for extra devices or subscriptions. Instead, everything is integrated into one platform, making the process more user-friendly and intuitive. 

📱 Telemedicine provider Consultant Connect is working with NGO Bridges2Health&Rights and the International League of Dermatological Societies to improve outcomes for refugees and displaced groups in Lebanon living with severe skin conditions. Through the Consultant Connect app, health workers in Lebanon can share images and messages with specialists in the UK and Europe. This helps healthcare workers on the ground with little knowledge about skin diseases to get quick advice, leading to faster diagnoses and better treatment for patients. 

❓Did you know?

Two-thirds (66%) of primary care doctors in the US report that AI tools have significantly reduced administrative burden, according to a November survey by US EHR provider Elation Health.

The survey of 100 primary care doctors found AI tools were saving at least one hour per day for 56%, while 60% reported that AI had helped them run their practices more efficiently.

Also 65% of respondents said that AI should be integrated into existing EHR workflows, while 54% were optimistic that AI would enhance their practice’s financial performance within the next year.

📖 What we’re reading

NHS Confederation has published an engagement paper on integrating AI into NHS communications, inviting feedback from professionals across the sector.

Published 2 December, the paper explores how AI might support more personalised communications and improve collaboration across teams, with a focus on applications like chatbots, natural language processing and generative AI tools. It considers how these technologies could improve productivity and efficiency by reducing admin time, allowing NHS staff to focus on more high-value, strategic work.

It also highlights challenges such as data privacy, ethical use of AI and balancing AI tools with human-centred communication, noting that AI-generated content needs to align with NHS values and voice and should not be a replacement for human interactions.

The engagement paper is open for consultation until February 2025, with insights shaping a framework for AI use in NHS communications due in the spring.