Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has been working with the DigitalHealth.London’s Accelerator promgramme and CW+ to successfully establish new innovative projects at their hospitals, supporting their digital health innovation and quality improvement strategy.
Zoë Penn, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust Medical Director said: “The Accelerator has been a key component of our innovation and quality improvement portfolio this year. We have worked with our charity CW+ to secure some high quality, transformative and patient-centric digital health projects, engaging with over 45 staff across both our hospitals. I shall be looking forward to a second even more successful year.”
The five innovations which Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust adopted are:
- The first UK pilot for stoma patient digital health: A group of nine colorectal surgeons and specialist stoma nurses from the Trust will trial the ostom-I device with patients. The sensor, by Accelerator company 11Health, enables wireless monitoring of stoma discharge for patients and their clinical teams. With some 102,000 stoma patients in the UK alone, the pilot aims to inform a wider randomised clinical trial assessing impact of the device on quality of life and clinical outcomes. The Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) funded pilot includes Imperial College and New Bucks University.
- Digitising ward auditing and accreditation: A one-year CW+ funded collaboration aiming to digitise ward quality inspections across forty wards and specialist departments across the Trust’s two hospital sites. Working directly with the senior nursing team, Accelerator company PerfectWard will aim to demonstrate increased efficiency and transition to a fully paperless process, with an estimated six hours of senior nursing time saved from each ward audit.
- Physiotherapy remote guidance: The Chelsea and Westminster Hospital musculoskeletal physiotherapy team have selected Physitrack for the delivery of remote, video guidance to its patients, replacing the existing paper-based guidance. CW+ has funded five licenses for the team which will allow custom video content to be prescribed to an unlimited number of patients for one year.
- Remote monitoring of heart failure patients: West Middlesex University Hospital’s cardiology team is working with Accelerator company Medopad as part of a one-year pilot aiming to transform heart failure patient care across wider settings of care. Wirelessly linking to devices and wearables, but also enabling direct patient feedback, the mobile app will allow the clinical team to follow heart failure patients while at home and detect patient deterioration earlier. Overall project goals include a 15% reduction in patient readmission rates.
- Improving postnatal ward patient experience and system efficiency: The Trust has selected Accelerator company Lumeon for the digitisation of its postnatal discharge process. The two-year project funded by CW+ will aim to lower mean discharge waiting times to under two hours, freeing up an estimated 1,000 bed days a year.
