HTN Now Awards - meet the winners
After another fantastic evening at the HTN Now Awards 2022, we wrap up the celebrations by sharing a feature all about the winners.
Earlier today, we announced the winning and highly commended entries across all 10 of our awards categories, sharing in the delight of all the health tech professionals who were shortlisted.
Regardless of who takes home the awards, the aim of our virtual ceremony is to recognise the fantastic work that has taken place across the NHS and industry over the past 12 months.
If you missed the big reveals, however, don’t worry, you can recap the evening’s events through our ‘meet the winners piece’ below, where we re-share the successful submissions, along with video announcements from some special guests.
Well done everyone! It’s time to roll-up the virtual red carpet, and announce…
Presented by Dr Osman Bhatti, GP and the Chief Clinical Information Officer for the North East London Clinical Commissioning Grou
Winner…Health Tech Team of the Year – Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust’s Business Intelligence Team
The Gloucestershire Hospital Foundation Trust (GHFT) Business Intelligence Team picked up the crown for Health Tech Team of the Year. They were awarded first place for their ‘hard work and sheer determination’ to push forward with a wide range of projects including: creating real-time dashboards with data flows, in order to support the trust operationally during COVID, and a multi-faceted approach to providing intelligence to support the post-COVID strategy and landscape.
Over the last 12 months, the BI Team have provided analytics to ensure the trust had enough oxygen and PPE, enabled movements in green/red wards, and modelled COVID projections – which were used to manage beds effectively. A new Electronic Patient Record system was also devised and implemented, requiring analytical support 24-hours a day, seven days a week, for a month. Analysts were working nights and weekends, often sat in the Emergency Department alongside clinicians, to ensure this system was deployed effectively and ensuring that the data was robust and meaningful.
All of this was achieved whilst still moving forward with development of the department and pushing intelligence and the roll-out of new systems, enabling more granular clinical data to be made available for analytical purposes (NEWS2, falls assessments, MUST values and Waterlow scores).
Winner…Health Tech Case Study of the Year – Barts Health NHS Trust
Barts Health NHS Trust took top spot for its case study, after it was selected to be Lead Provider for London’s COVID-19 Mass Vaccination Centres at ExCeL London, Westfield Stratford and other hospital hubs. The trust developed the Class Attendance Tracker QR (CATQR) solution, in conjunction with a Microsoft Gold Partner, to efficiently monitor workforce attendance and competence in real-time.
The trust’s Education Academy was tasked to induct, train, and competency assess, a workforce able to deliver up to 10,000 vaccinations a day – whilst working to extremely tight deadlines. They decided to use their existing real-time solution for training attendance and compliance, Class Attendance Tracker QR (CATQR), co-developed with Shinetech Software, and previously used at the NHS Nightingale Hospital London. The technology uses QR codes and people’s own mobile phones to effectively ‘sign in’ to education and training sessions, providing accurate real-time data for both learners and the trust.
CATQR was used in a variety of ways: to track people’s attendance at group training sessions; to check the signing in and signing out of staff and volunteers into the centre, as a record of who was in the building for safety; to track the successful competency assessment of all staff through daily supervision; to track the lateral flow testing results of all staff and volunteers; to monitor clinical competency in real time within the pods. CATQR effectively replaced around 25,000 individual paper signatures from the workforce and provided a system that not only eliminated the errors that creep in with manual systems but also real-time data reporting.
Winner…Supporting Integrated Care System Transformation – Isla Care Ltd and North West London ICS
For work supporting Integrated Care System (ICS) transformation, our expert judging panel picked out how the Isla platform has supported teledermatology services across the North West London ICS. The project was funded by NHSX and its aim was to standardise the ‘Two-Week Wait’ pathway across the patch, including at Chelsea and Westminster, Imperial, and London North West.
The teledermatology pathway gives patients an appointment with a medical photographer, with a high-resolution camera, and photos are reviewed by the consultant the next day. The aim of Two-Week Wait Telederm is to streamline the pathway and allow for shorter appointment times, which addresses waiting lists and maintains the 14-day standard.
Isla’s introduction was aimed at optimising the process. In the new pathway, patients complete their required NUCA questionnaire (outcome measure) in advance of their appointment. These questionnaires were sent via SMS with an encrypted link and SMSs were generated in the platform entirely automatically, using clinic codes and appointment dates – resulting in no admin burden. These questionnaires are then captured digitally within Isla. After an appointment, photos are also then uploaded onto the Isla platform.
From over 8,500 cases at Chelsea and Westminster there have been the following time-saving impacts: 10 per cent reduction in non-attendance (DNAs), 15 per cent reduction in the number of minor operations, 50 per cent reduction in medical photographer time. Furthermore, 75 per cent of patients completed their outcome measure forms in advance of their appointment, adding to efficiency in the service. These successes have been mirrored across the ICS.
Winner…Excellence in Remote Monitoring – Eleven Health
Eleven Health scooped the award for Excellence in Remote Monitoring on the night, as they were recognised for their work helping patients with sickle cell disease (SCD) to monitor and manage their own health outside of clinical settings. Their aims were to improve outcomes, and to use community data to improve vaccine uptake amongst the SCD community and among people who have ethnic minority backgrounds.
People with SCD spend the majority of their time outside of the hospital, yet most of their care exists solely in clinical settings, and Eleven believes support should not stop outside of the hospital walls. Its technology empowers SCD patients to monitor their own health and, through predictive analytics, take proactive steps to improve it. Eleven combines patient-reported pain scores and data gathered from wearable devices to predict upcoming vaso-occlusive crises (VOCs) with a minimum 85 per cent accuracy, three to seven days in advance. This enables patients to plan ahead or scale back their activity in the coming days to potentially reduce their risk of having a crisis.
Data gathered through Eleven can be collated into a shareable format for patients to take with them to appointments, giving healthcare providers a far deeper insight into the daily experience of SCD patients. While, through the Eleven Patient Wallet, members can easily share tracked data with their health team to give them in-depth insight into how they’ve been, without the pressure of remembering and recounting everything in one appointment. Through predictive technology integration and monitoring of relevant vitals, the goal is to provide the knowledge needed to shape the resulting treatment pathways and boost each patient’s understanding of their condition.
Winner…SME Innovation – X-on
Our judges’ choice for small-medium enterprise innovation was X-on, for driving change by moving communications to the cloud. The company’s constantly evolving flagship Surgery Connect product met GP needs in a variety of ways. Its innovations include: provision of unlimited lines supporting outgoing practice calls and patient callback; integration of Surgery Connect with patient record systems; optimising patient time by configuring Surgery Connect to inform patients with high-quality voice messages at every stage of their journey; and managing call flow to enable practices to have oversight through a browser-based graphical call flow creator that provides a visual representation of calls.
Surgery Connect also supports the new forms of consultation, such as video appointments, for remote working by practice staff and GPs, as well as being a scalable phone system that can meet the needs of individual practices, whilst also providing a future-proof cloud-based system that can absorb the needs of multiple sites.
To manage the vaccination rollout, X-on has also developed a softphone function for Surgery Connect, which is used in vaccination hubs to help manage the call traffic generated by vaccine appointment bookings and queries. The automatic SMS function also sends out appointment details and reminders. While, Surgery Connect Lite brings many of the benefits of Surgery Connect as a software only service. It can be put into service immediately to streamline the communications between healthcare professionals and patients. It integrates directly with the clinical system (EMIS Web, EMIS Community and SystmOne), so that manual dialling and context switching is eliminated.
Winner…Excellence in Data, AI and Automation – Synopsis
For Excellence in Data, AI and Automation, Synopsis were the winners from a fantastic selection of finalists. The Synopsis platform – comprised of the Synopsis iQ and Synopsis Home solutions – is noted for supporting hospitals to increase the pace at which they can tackle the backlog through secure data sharing (enabling patient load balancing).
The PAS / EPR integrated pre-operative assessment solution is a fully digital tool that takes a hybrid approach to pre-operative data gathering and streamlines the assessment process. It allows hospital staff to access data from patients who complete a pre-op questionnaire from home (using Synopsis Home), directly alongside data from patients who attend hospital for their pre-op questionnaire (using Synopsis iQ) – all within a single digital dashboard. Staff then use Synopsis iQ to evaluate the data as they conduct a full, tailored risk assessment.
The technology is being used across the NHS at trusts including North Bristol NHS Trust, Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, and King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust to improve patient load balancing as part of their pandemic recovery programme. Patients that used Synopsis Home during a three-month period at Worcestershire saved: 199 hours of travel time; 1,025 Kg CO2; 5,271 miles of travel; 722 hours inside the hospital. Synopsis has been used to complete over 200,000 pre-operative assessments across the NHS to date, delivering an average saving of £1.4 million per NHS trust, per annum.
Winner…Supporting Healthcare Teams’ Response to COVID-19 – NHS Arden and Gem CSU
NHS Arden and GEM CSU were awarded for their services in supporting healthcare teams’ response to the pandemic. The National Immunisation and Vaccination System (NIVS) has played a key role the in safe and effective implementation of the COVID-19 vaccination programme, capturing real-time data at the point of delivery for more than 10 million vaccinations.
Developed by NHS Arden & GEM CSU, working in collaboration with the national programme team and hospital hubs, NIVS provides a cost effective, clinically assured, interoperable solution. The Data and Systems Development team had already built a similar system to capture vaccinations for the flu immunisation programme, which had been used extensively in schools. The NIVS module also enables:
- Use of the NHS number to automatically access an individual’s vaccination history.
- Vaccinators to be guided through a clinical decision support process to ensure the intended recipient is suitable for the vaccine.
- Batch information to be captured, by vaccine type and manufacturer, along with expiry dates.
- Assurance that patients are receiving vaccine doses within specified timeframes.
The system was rapidly deployed to the first hospital vaccination hubs in December 2020 and has since been rolled out to mass vaccination centres. The web-based application is now live in 457 vaccination settings and has captured over 11 million vaccination events. Users from 188 different organisations are supported via a dedicated help desk, web page, e-newsletter, user guides and manuals, and training videos.
Winner…Making an Impact – Ashtons Hospital Pharmacy Services
Ashtons Hospital Pharmacy Services will receive a giant green ‘H’ through the post from HTN, to celebrate their impact over the past year. The award-winner launched the Ashtons e-Works ePMA system in 2021.
Prescribing errors have reduced by 88 per cent and medicines administration errors by 94 per cent. They estimate e-Works has prevented 49 incidents, which would likely have led to long-term patient harm or death during 2021; that’s around 1.25 per site. e-Works users can manage patients’ prescriptions and review the administration of medication remotely, 24/7. It replaces paper medication records, such as prescription charts, and is transformational in improving the safe prescribing and administration of medication. It also ensures faster access to medication, reduces duplications of patient records and helps to free up staff time.
Ashtons’ e-Works includes decision support software, which advises clinicians about medicine doses, potential adverse drug interactions, and contra indications such as potential drug allergic reactions. Following its full launch earlier this year, 39 hospitals and hospices are now contracted as e-Works clients. Error rates were measured in the six months prior to implementation. A three-month window was then allowed following implementation, then error rates were measured again in the following six months. As well as the aforementioned reduction in administration and prescribing errors, there was also a 92 per cent reduction in patient details errors.
Winner…Excellence in Digital Pathways – Credentially
Our winner for work on digital pathways is Credentially, whose healthcare software presents a solution that can reduce hiring time from months to around 10 days, by enabling onboarding and compliance checks, in line with the CQC in the UK.
In 2020, NHS England needed to mobilise a team of thousands of ex-doctors and nurses, as well as volunteers, to help with the COVID response and were onboarding 50/week. But, according to Credentially, with their help it increased to 1,000/week. The software allows healthcare workers to have a customised journey through the onboarding process and is helping the healthcare sector to stop wasting time on paperwork. By helping to ensure compliance checks it is also supporting patient safety.
The ultimate mission is to save time and money in the recruitment, onboarding and compliance processes, while also ensuring fit and proper persons are employed in line with Regulation 19 of the CQC. Credentially also helps human resources departments working with tight budgets for hiring to reduce their costs and the burden of stress and paperwork. Its services are accessible on a PC, a tablet or mobile phone, and the digital platform allows users to upload CVs and documents including DBS, NMC, and GMC records, which are then scanned using AI technology and can be used to electronically sign documents and complete video training.
Since its launch, Credentially says it has helped clients globally to: reduce hiring time by 40 per cent; reduce manual work by 90 per cent; and save 67 per cent of hiring costs.
Winner…Health Tech Leader of the Year – Dr Saroj Patel, Chief Digital Innovation Officer, Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Trust
In this health tech leadership category, we present this individual award to Dr Saroj Patel, Chief Digital Innovation Officer at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Trust.
Back in November, HTN welcomed Dr Patel, who presented a live session on ‘the goal and art of co-designing and co-creating a modular care record’, which focused on the trust’s journey while creating a modular health record system, sharing learnings and outcomes with our audience.
HTN would like to say a big ‘congratulations’ to all of the winners, as well as to the highly commended entries, and all the finalists and submissions. Thank you all for the work you do – we can’t wait to hear more about it as the year progresses!
