Wales pilots new virtual care mental health pathway for care home patients
Patients with mental health concerns in two care homes part of Swansea Bay University Health Board will be able to access Spirit Health’s CliniTouch Vie remote patient monitoring platform, with an aim to help improve their wellbeing and avoid hospital admission.
The six-month pilot will see the tool established in two large care homes, supporting patients with dementia and other mental health issues. It will enable the Mental Health In-reach team to monitor patients on a regular basis and receive results in real-time to review.
Care workers at the homes will complete a series of questions, as well as noting the patient’s vital sign measurements daily, weekly or monthly which will be specified by the team. The tech will automatically analyse the data and generate a risk-scored list of prioritised actions.
Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust (CNWL) is rolling out the Tendable Audit App (previously called Perfect Ward) across all inpatient sites, including CAMHS, eating disorders and physical health inpatient services.
The trust said the app will introduce a new way to complete audits and will replace the current audit processes using paper and spreadsheets.
Once live, the app will cover many of the ward audits including hand hygiene, environmental, rapid tranquilisation, infection, prevention and control checklist, controlled drugs and more.
Staff from CNWL said that testing phase of the app was positive, describing the app as “easy to use” and that audit completion is “much quicker than before”.
NHS Grampian first to trial new AI chest X-ray
NHS Grampian is to trial Annalise Enterprise’s chest X-ray AI module (Annalise CXR) a triage solution aimed to speed-up the diagnoses of chest problems.
The project was led by the health board’s Innovation Hub, and will see NHS Grampian radiologists and clinicians assess Annalise CXR at 12 sites in Eastern Scotland including Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, Woodend Hospital and Dr Gray’s Hospital, Elgin.
The CXR model was trained using over 800,000 unique images, ranging from more than 280,000 patients. Currently NHS Grampian generates around 350,000 medical images a year, with 60,000 being chest x-rays.
Dr Andrew Keen, clinical lead for innovation, at NHS Grampian, said: “The NHS has significant well-documented challenges in delivering high quality care in a timely manner. COVID-19 has compounded this situation and, in some cases, increased waiting times. As an organisation, NHS Grampian is committed to co-developing and robustly evaluating potential, innovative solutions to improve and speed up our services.”
STORM Lab in Leeds design a robot small enough to reach bronchial tubes
A team of scientists, engineers and clinicians at STORM Lab in Leeds have a developed a robot that is small enough to reach some of the smallest bronchial tubes in the lungs.
The newly developed robot measures 2 millimetres in diameter, and is said to ‘be easier for doctors to manoeuvre’ using an autonomous magnetic guidance system.
It’s said to be small enough to access the more difficult-to-reach areas of the lungs, and once it has arrived at its target location, the robot can take tissue samples.
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