Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and its CW Innovation programme have formed two new partnerships with the companies Gilead Sciences and C-Score.
The news comes as the trust and its charity, CW+, recently celebrated the two-year anniversary of the Innovation programme, which has overseen a host of developments around the fast-tracking, testing and scaling of technologies in areas such as AI, machine learning, apps, and other forms of digital healthcare.
Over the past 24 months or so, CW+ says that the programme has seen over £3.2 million in investment, taken on six new innovation fellows, and worked with ‘over 120 innovative solutions and models of care’, after being introduced to help transform patient care.
As reported by HTN, some of these innovations have included digitally enhanced critical care units, a way-finder app for patients, a diabetes app that enables remote monitoring, and roll-outs of thermal screening and imaging technologies.
The trust’s latest partnerships with Gilead Sciences and C-Score continue this work, with a dual focus on supporting both staff and patients. C-Score, a free-to-use app developed by Chelsea Digital Ventures (CDV) as part of a collaboration between the tech company Huma and CDV, which is described as a ‘digital-first business spun out of Chelsea FC’, will help staff with both their physical health and mental wellbeing. The technology will allow users to monitor themselves, while a similar general health and wellness programme is also in the works for patients.
Chris Chaney, Chief Executive at CW+, said: “We are delighted to be working with C-Score in new and innovative ways to help our staff and patients improve their health and wellbeing. Never before has it been more important to promote healthy living and reduce health inequalities.
“CW Innovation’s expanding portfolio of partnerships with organisations like C-Score, has helped us to respond to the rapidly changing needs of our patients and staff. With digital innovation front and centre at the trust, we’ve embedded people and processes internally, and attracted strategic partners externally to continue to innovate at pace and address the most urgent challenges faced by healthcare organisations today.”
Last week, the trust also revealed it would be working with biopharmaceutical company, Gilead Sciences. The project is set to involve a ‘scoping exercise’ to ‘assess the potential impact of digital technologies on patient outcomes as well as staff and patient time’.
One area of focus will be around self-care for people living with HIV and the management of the complex needs facing people living with HIV as they age.
According to CW+, the new partnership ‘aims to enhance the lives of people living with HIV in ageing and/or with co-morbidities using digital technologies’ and is set to analyse Chelsea and Westminster’s HIV patient service pathway for older adults, and find out whether digital technologies could improve this.
Prof Marta Boffito, Consultant Physician and HIV Service Director and Clinical Research Facility Lead at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Together with our charity CW+, we welcome the opportunity to collaborate with Gilead Sciences on this all-important research project, which will capture the patient voice and experience, providing us with clear insights on how we can improve the care of older adults living with HIV and those with comorbidities by further incorporating digital technology in our service”.
The trust runs one of the largest HIV services in Europe and the largest in the UK, and earlier this year its CW Innovation programme also announced the launch of a new app called Klick, which digitally connects clinicians and patients as part of its HIV service, enabling remote care and appointment management.
To find out more about innovation at the trust and CW+, read our recent interviews with Dr Ryan Dhunnookchand, who worked on the Acute COVID app, and Bruno Botelho, the trust’s Deputy Chief Operating Officer and Director of Digital Operations.
