12 innovators have joined the NHS Innovation Accelerator (NIA) for the year, a programme to support innovations scale across health and care.
This year technologies range from tools to support the workforce, mental health and COVID-19 responses, including remote patient monitoring, to diagnostics and virtual clinical training for staff.
The programme, now in its sixth year, is delivered by NHS England and NHS Improvement in partnership with 15 AHSNs, hosted at UCLPartners.
The 12 innovations selected to join the NHS Innovation Accelerator in 2021 include:
- AcuPebble SA100: a wearable CE-marked medical device able to accurately and non-invasively diagnose sleep apnoea from the patient’s home.
- Brain in Hand: a digital innovation using coaching principles and practical support to help people living with anxiety and other neurodevelopmental conditions.
- Cyted: a digital diagnostic infrastructure to provide services for the earlier detection of disease through proprietary machine learning.
- Definition Health: a digital pre- and post-op communications tool between hospital and patient, providing the first end to end journey for surgical patients in the UK.
- Feebris: a mobile-based software platform powered by AI that helps users (clinical or non-clinical) to detect and triage respiratory deterioration remotely.
- Infinity Health: a digital platform on which health and care staff log, share and coordinate their daily tasks in real-time, replacing paper-based manual methods.
- KiActiv: a mentor-guided digital service that empowers people to make sustainable behaviour change in the context of their health, capacity and environment, without the need to visit gyms or clinics.
- Little Journey: a smartphone-based health behaviour modification tool that provides end-to-end support for families to reduce children’s anxiety before a healthcare procedure.
- MUTU System: an at-home online programme of exercises to help women heal and strengthen from pelvic symptoms and associated mental health concerns post-baby.
- Oxford Medical Simulation: providing clinical experiences on demand through the use of virtual reality so doctors and nurses can practice caring for virtual patients whenever they need to.
- Oxehealth: a contact-free vision-based patient monitoring platform for use in hospitals (mental health) and nursed facilities.
- Vinehealth: a digital platform that uses behavioural science and AI to improve the quality of life and survival of cancer patients through highly personalised patient support.
The programme has supported the creation of 746 new jobs, 49 innovations are now being used internationally and the innovations have reached 2,475 health and care settings.
Last year 11 innovators were part of the programme, including:
- Fibricheck: A medically certified app (CE Class IIA, FDA approved) capable of the early detection of heart rhythm disorders, such as atrial fibrillation, using a smartphone or smartwatch.
- Health Navigator: AI-guided proactive health coaching to prevent avoidable urgent and emergency care.
- Locum’s Nest: A locum app that connects doctors to locum work in hospitals, while cutting out the inefficient, ineffective and expensive agency middleman.
- Management and Supervision Tool (MaST): A dashboard that uses predictive analytics to generate insights which support staff to deliver high-quality, effective mental health care by identifying those people who are most likely to require crisis services.
- MediShout: The world’s first platform to integrate all logistical departments in hospitals, giving clinicians an app to instantly report issues and using AI to predict future problems.
- MyPreOp: A cloud-hosted programme enabling patients to enter, own and share their preoperative assessment information.
- Patient Experience Platform (PEP): AI platform transforming healthcare and improving safety by empowering the digital voice of patients.
- QbTest: A CE-marked, FDA approved medical device that simultaneously measures attention, impulsivity and motor activity to speed up ADHD diagnosis and treatment evaluation.
- RIX Wiki: Software that enables people with learning disabilities to share personal health and care information for effective person-centred support in their communities.
- Safe Steps: Reducing the number of preventable falls in the ageing population through digital, evidence-based interventions.
- The WaterDrop: A low-cost, high-impact innovation that enables patients to easily access fluids at any time without needing to call for help to help prevent dehydration and avoidable intravenous drips.
