Find out the latest headlines in health tech, as we round-up recent news from industry, academia and, of course, the NHS.
This week, we catch up on a range of stories covering artificial intelligence (AI) innovation in cancer and stroke care, simulation hubs, an app to support children in Ghana, and a new text messaging service for patients feedback…
Royal Free trials AI breast screening
Royal Free London (RFL) NHS Foundation Trust has launched an AI breast screening study, to see whether the technology can be used to detect breast cancer ‘more effectively than current screening methods’.
The RFL’s innovation and intelligent automation team has been working with North London Breast Screening (NLBSS) on a clinical evaluation of Kheiron Medical Technologies AI tool, Mia, to find a solution.
As part of the retrospective study, mammograms that have already been carried out and read by staff will be reviewed by Mia, with the diagnoses compared at the end.
The software analyses images and suggests that either no further action is needed, or recommends further investigation – although the final decisions will still be left to clinicians.
If the trial, currently ongoing across 14 sites, is successful, it is hoped it could reduce the need for a second radiologist, which could help with staff shortages and the care backlog.
Dr William Teh, clinical site lead, said: “The study will provide evidence to help assess whether the use of AI in this instance could be a viable option. It’s an opportunity to analyse and assess the differences between human and machine made decisions and to learn whether AI has the potential power to positively transform clinical practice in real-world screening populations.”
Virtual receptionists go live at Grimsby
Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust has announced that Grimsby hospital has introduced virtual receptionists for its video consultations.
The trust rolled out Attend Anywhere video consultations in April 2020, during the first wave of COVID-19, and has since delivered thousands of appointments. Now the focus has switched to adding virtual receptionists to complement the service.
Already piloted in Scunthorpe, the virtual receptionists will greet patients in the virtual waiting room, check they are in the right place and provide updates if the clinic is running behind time.
Claire Chafer, Assistant General Manager of Patient Access, said of the addition: “Video consultations have transformed the way we run our outpatient clinics and we are now enhancing the patient experience by introducing virtual receptionists. As well as meeting and greeting patients, they’ll be able to check your personal details are up-to-date and carry out other administrative tasks that are currently falling on the clinician.”
AI breast cancer tool gets UK and EU certification
Panakeia’s PANProfilerBreast assay, AI software that predicts biomarker status from digitally imaged pathology samples, has received UKCA and CE certification for clinical use by health services in the UK and EU.
Created to help guide clinical decision-making, the solution integrates into digital cancer diagnostic workflows, analyses digital images of routinely-collected haemotoxylinand eosin (H&E) stained breast tumour samples to determine ER, PR and HER2 status, and identifies whether a patient is a candidate for hormone therapy or Herceptin.
The AI software also provides a diagnostic readout from the original H&E image in less than 15 minutes, with accuracy the company says is comparable to lab testing, and is currently being trialled in UK hospitals.
Professor Sarah Pinder, Chair of Breast Pathology at King’s College London and lead breast pathologist at Guy’s & St Thomas’ Hospitals, said: “This exciting technology has the potential to save laboratory resources and also to improve turnaround time for biomarker results for patients with invasive breast cancer.”
East Suffolk and North Essex introduces e-Stroke
East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust (ESNEFT) has introduced AI technology, called e-Stroke, to guide and speed up stroke treatment and care decisions.
The software analyses images of the brain and blood vessels and automatically flags blockages to clinicians, and also allows stroke teams to securely share these scans with colleagues at specialist centres for second opinions.
The aim is to ensure that patients who need a thrombectomy, to remove a clot, can be transferred to specialist sites as quickly as possible, increasing their chance of a good recovery, due to the stroke clinical pathway being ‘highly time sensitive’.
e-Stroke, developed by Oxford-based company Brainomix, is already in place at other NHS trusts, with Colchester and Ipswich hospitals the latest centres from the east of England to introduce the software, due to a grant from NHSX.
Dr Sajid Alam, a stroke consultant at Ipswich Hospital, said: “We are delighted to have introduced this cutting-edge technology at ESNEFT. It will give our clinicians 24/7 access to an expert second opinion so that we can ensure our patients receive potentially life-saving treatment as quickly as possible, in turn improving their outcomes and chance of making a good recovery.”
Kent and Medway NHS to launch new text messaging service
The PREM asks eight questions about how staff have engaged with patients and their companions, aiming to find out whether the trust is communicating well with service users.
The trust wants to use the service to find out what works and what has been less helpful for patients during their care journey. Kent and Medway will gather all of the results and analyse them to inform improvements, and will share the anonymised results with care groups and individual service managers.
Hertfordshire’s new simulation hub
Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (HPFT) has announced the launch of a new ‘simulation hub’ and training facility.
The hub places staff in simulated, real-world-style situations, which would typically occur on wards or in the community, alongside trained actors who ‘play’ service users.
According to HPFT, the training provides staff with ‘a safe, judgement-free, practical space that is almost identical to the working environment, recreating the kinds of challenges that can occur in normal day-to-day work’. The new facility will teach practical skills like risk assessment and management, core psychiatry and physical health skills.
HPFT Deputy Chief Executive Karen Taylor, said: “The Simulation Hub is a fantastic example of how we put learning and safety at the heart of everything we do. I have seen for myself how the interactive, immersive training gives our teams the space to reflect and learn together in a safe and controlled environment. I’m really excited about how this facility and approach will take our learning from incidents and training to a new level across the Trust, supporting our staff to continue to provide the best care for our service users and carers”
The hub is home to a number of dedicated rooms, including clinical skills laboratories, simulation and debrief rooms, and includes hi-fidelity cameras and mannequins.
Barts becomes first to use electric balloon for heart treatment
St Bartholomew’s Hospital, part of Barts Healt NHS Trust, says it has become the first in the UK to introduce electric balloon technology to treat patients with an irregular heart rhythm.
Staff in the hospital’s catheterisation laboratories are using the Heliostar electric balloon, which works by using electrical energy to burn tissues in the heart to return it to a normal rhythm within minutes.
According to Barts, clinicians ‘insert a catheter tube into the heart, which is followed by the balloon’ and ‘shape the balloon into position and it expands up to two centimetres in size…so that it can deliver energy to the connection between the veins and the heart chamber.’
Once inside the veins, ‘an electric conductor in the balloon (an electrode) carries an electric energy into the heart, which clinicians monitor on a screen, allowing them to cauterise (or burn) the abnormal area’, enabling them to stop abnormal tissues from ‘firing off’ in the veins.
Malcolm Finlay, a consultant cardiologist at the Barts Heart Centre, said: “St Bartholomew’s was involved in the early development of this radiofrequency balloon back in February 2018, so it really has come full circle now that we’re the first hospital in the UK to start using it to treat our NHS patients.
“It’s a testament to our great team that such ground-breaking work can take place so seamlessly even after dealing with the pandemic.”
Xploro partners with World Child Cancer on app for children
Health tech company Xploro has been working with World Child Cancer to offer free health app access to children in Ghana.
Xploro will be used on tablet devices, powered with mobile data provided by World Child Cancer, during a two month pilot scheme in a Ghanaian hospital. This will then be followed by a roll-out to more hospitals in the country, as well as at hospitals in Cameroon and Malawi.
It’s expected that the Xploro app will ultimately be available in every country that World Child Cancer has a presence in.
The app, which aims to reduce anxiety in children who are being treated for serious illnesses, has been customised to ‘reflect specific hospital environments, local staff roles and cultural differences such as names’. For example, children from Ghana have been involved in choosing new in-app avatar names.
Xploro’s co-founder and CEO, Dom Raban, said: “This project will have a huge impact, not only on children using Xploro but their families too. Many hospitals in low and middle-income countries are poorly resourced. Clinicians often don’t have the time or materials to explain to children and their families what to expect from a serious illness like cancer, or the implications of its treatment. This can lead to treatment refusal, or abandonment, through misunderstanding and miseducation. “
Professor Lorna Awo Renner, Consultant Paediatric Oncologist and World Child Cancer’s Ghana programme lead, commented: “We are delighted to be able to offer the Xploro app to the children at Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital. Being admitted to hospital is often a very frightening and confusing time for families, so having a tool at our disposal to help them make sense of their treatment and diagnosis is invaluable. Through this partnership we hope to reduce the anxiety experienced by children undergoing treatment – encouraging them to learn and have fun in the process.”
