HTN Awards 2022: meet the winners
After months of reading, judging and the very difficult job of deciding who among our finalists should take the crown, we have finally announced the winners of the Health Tech Awards 2022!
The Health Tech Awards are a fantastic showcase of the breadth of hard work and innovation happening across the health tech industry – each project or programme included in our 17 categories exists to make things better for patients or for staff, and we want to say a massive well done to everybody who took part.
And now, without further ado: meet the winners.
Best Health Tech Solution of the Year: C2-Ai
C2-Ai came out top in a tough category featuring 21 finalists.
The Cheshire and Merseyside model for stratifying the elective surgical waiting list, built around C2-Ai’s AI-backed prioritisation system, was commissioned by NHS England and pioneered at St Helens Knowsley NHS Trust. The system uses 30 years of research and the world’s largest referential patient dataset to create priority scores built on detailed calculations for mortality and complication risks, aiming to ensure that patients are seen at the right time in the right place leading to the right outcome. Feedback shows that clinicians have agreed with 99 percent of the reprioritisation decisions made by the C2-Ai system, and the model has now been deployed at multiple trusts and ICSs.
Best Use of Digital in Primary Care: Mendelian
Mendelian took the prize in this category for their AI case-finding software MendelScan.
MendelScan uses clinician built algorithms to capture disease features from patient records across entire populations and matches them against diagnostic criteria for hundreds of rare and hard-to-diagnose diseases. It runs bespoke algorithms to detect early signs and symptoms and integrates seamlessly into clinical systems, requiring no management from GPs. To date, MendelScan is implemented in 64 GP practices, helping them to diagnose patients with diseases earlier and thus contributing to better patient outcomes and quality of life.
Major Project Go Live: ImproveWell and The Royal College of Psychiatrists
ImproveWell partnered with The Royal College of Psychiatrists to tackle staff burnout and support wellbeing.
Launched in 2021, the Enjoying Work quality improvement collaborative from The Royal College of Psychiatrists provided opportunities for 38 healthcare teams across 16 UK healthcare organisations to understand and test ideas on factors contributing to joy in work and wellbeing. The programme achieved 50 percent improvement in the percentage of people who enjoyed being at work frequently and 41 percent improvement in the percentage of people experiencing no symptoms of burnout, and learnings from the 38 teams involved are set to be shared publicly to support other organisations in improving wellbeing at work.
Most Promising Pilot: Lancashire and South Cumbria Health and Care Partnership and BridgeHead Software
In this category, our winners Lancashire and South Cumbria Health and Care Partnership and BridgeHead Software piloted a new digitised and mobile workflow and data management solution.
The solution, HiPRES, uses best-of-breed mobile and data management technology to speed up processes, reduce costly wastage and ensure that data can flow quickly across NHS networks. Initially, the project focused on capturing, storing, protecting and sharing the data and images required to support saliva testing for COVID-19, with HiPRES digitising the testing process. The version in use today has over 10,000 NHS users and supports processing of up to 30,000 samples each month.
Best Use of AI and Automation Tools: Transform and Health Education England
Transform and Health Education partnered to use data and advanced analytics to deliver breakthrough insights and build confidence in AI.
To improve health and care in England, Health Education England seeks to ensure that the healthcare workforce is adequate, reduce attrition and increase attainment. They had insight on the drivers of attrition but did not understand the unique blends of drivers for each individual, so Transform prepared data into a modelling dataset, collated and cleaned it, and fed it into a number of supervised machine learning classifier algorithms. This allowed a model to be developed to provide an attrition prediction for a trainee at the start of each placement, so that Health Education England could successfully identify individuals with a high propensity of attrition and better understand possible intervention approaches.
Best Use of Data: Intelligent Lilli
Intelligent Lilli’s remote monitoring tech supports a proactive approach to home care.
The solution uses data from discrete sensors in the home which record activities such as movement, eating and drinking, power-usage and door opening. The algorithm can then analyse data to provide a ‘normal’ baseline pattern of behaviour across key behaviours. Care workers can access this data in real-time and Lilli can spot and flag deviations that could indicate a declining or improving state of health.
Excellence in Engagement and Communication: App Rail
SpeakUp from App Rail empowers NHS staff to report concerns to result in better working conditions and quality of care.
App Rail collaborated with the Freedom to Speak Up Guardian from University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire to develop and test SpeakUp, an intuitive and accessible app. Staff can provide actionable information about concerns, with a web portal allowing ambassadors to manage concerns quickly and easily. Since the launch of SpeakUp, concerns raised have increased by 40 percent and staff have expressed that the platform’s development raised morale.
Digital Mental Health Solution of the Year: TellMi
Early intervention mental health solution TellMi delivers fully moderated, evidence-based peer support to young people aged 11-25.
TellMi’s aim is to provide a safe space for young people to talk about difficult things. The solution is delivered via an app and provides an accessible, scalable and preventative solution that supports young people before they reach a crisis stage. It has gained positive traction with NHS, schools and local authorities, and a study into 876 young people using the app found that 72 percent of users felt better, 79 percent felt less alone and 78 percent found it easier to talk about difficult things anonymously on the app.
Digital Pathway and Workflow Optimisation: HCI
HCI took this prize with CONNECTPlus, their informative and interactive whole health management platform.
The solution is prescribed to patients as a mobile app and aims to improve self-management, reduce appointment times and improve workflow. Following a patient engagement event at Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust, HCI worked with patients and clinical teams to develop CONNECTPlus, a tool that provides 24/7 access to clinically assured information for multiple conditions and pathways, all in one place. Hospitals can add as many pathways as required and patients are provided with one place to find everything they need about their care.
Best Solution for Clinicians: Infinity Health and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust
Infinity Health and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust collaborated to implement a task management solution for the out-of-hours service.
The trust implemented Infinity’s solution with the aim of reducing unnecessary administrative burden to free up clinical time, improve task management, support out-of-hours staff to better manage their workload, and support the Out-of-hours Coordinator to triage, prioritise and allocate tasks. As a result, staff report improved experience, with 62 percent reporting that it has reduced the risk of error. Each out-of-hours staff member now 91 minutes per shift on average.
Efficiency Savings of the Year: Lantum
To save time and money for the NHS, Lantum unites clinicians and employers on one platform to deliver the best patient care together.
Lantum’s total workforce management solution, Connecting Scheduling, supports organisations to efficiently schedule staff with a rostering solution, staff bank feature and network of locum clinicians in one place. Lantum fills upwards of 20,000 shifts across the UK each month, with 19 ICSs, over 300 PCNs and one-in-two practices using Lantum to transform their workforce management. Over £30 million has been saved for the NHS to date.
Best Digital Solution Supporting Waiting List Management: Nottingham University Hospital Trust and DrDoctor
Nottingham University Hospital Trust collaborated with DrDoctor to protect vulnerable patients, validate outpatient waiting lists and free up clinician time.
As a result of the collaboration, the trust introduced a comprehensive, digitally-enabled programme including digital patient reviews, a patient portal with patient-centred appointment management, and video consultations. The focus over the last year has been on converting face-to-face follow-up appointments with DrDoctor’s digital questionnaires. Implemented across 16 specialties, the questionnaires allow clinicians to establish whether a patient needs to come in for a face-to-face follow-up and allows clinical teams to make informed decisions on next steps for each patient’s care.
Partnership of the Year: Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust and Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital Foundation Trust
Our winning partnership was between Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust and Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital Foundation Trust, for their work creating integrated digital service iDigital.
The new service aims to support both trusts in improving staff development and wellbeing, along with financial savings. It offers the trusts dedicated support teams as well as central teams to manage projects and infrastructure with the benefits of a consistent approach and the opportunity to share learnings. There are increased chances of progression and the opportunity to input on the new service design via a cross-trust staff council. A notable benefit is the greater range of digital expertise now at each trust’s disposal, improving service provision and level of resilience due to a more robust structure.
New Innovation of the Year: Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Laudit
The Laudit platform has supported Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in helping their staff reach their potential, boosting morale and showing how they are valued.
An easy-to-use reporting system was implemented to capture staff actions and allow staff to send positive feedback. The system supports site-wide workforce analysis and enables line managers to see which members of their team received a Laudit, identifying key performers. Since the launch, thousands of Laudits have been sent, helping to improve staff wellbeing through recognition of efforts and good work.
Digitising Patient Services: Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust
Our winners in this category, Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust, undertook digital transformation to improve conditions and outcomes for patients, the staff and trust as a whole.
The trust aimed to deliver a unified and value-driven approach to outpatient care across the trust and focused on five key projects: remote consultations, patient-initiated follow-up, advice and guidance, request management, and the patient portal. The digital transformation project is data-led with regular monitoring with achievements so far including restructuring the outpatient model to simplify and standardise ways of working, and developing framework guidance around the Planned Care Inequalities Plan to embed methodology supporting specific cohorts.
Excellence in Project Management: Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust and Imprivata
Imprivita’s OneSign SSO (single sign-on) was implemented for 3,000 users and 4,000 devices in just four weeks at Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust.
Imprivata’s solution was chosen by the trust’s team for its ability to authenticate users against an active directory in under ten seconds and allow them to log into the new EPR application with a remote deployment option. It met all criteria and was implemented in just four weeks; three teams of IT engineers completed software installations, sharing learnings at the end of the day to speed up the work, confident users could self-register and pop-up sessions were held at the same time as EPR training to support others. The trust reports improved security and data governance as a result along with improved patient outcomes and productivity.
Best Solution Improvement: Accurx
During regular practice visits last year, Accurx spotted an opportunity for improvement in their Patient Triage solution.
They observed that teams using Patient Triage were spending a lot of time transferring patient requests, and undertook research to better understand opinions and feedback. Accurx added a new feature called Self-Book to the solution to allow GP practice staff to invite patients to book their appointments directly into the system, with invites and appointments controlled to prevent bottlenecks. Since Self-Book pilots started in November, practices report benefits such as reduction in calls to the practice and a reduction in ‘did-not-attends’. Accurx projects that 1579 hours have been saved using Self-Book to date.
That’s a wrap on the Health Tech Awards 2022!
If you’d like to remind yourself of the full list of finalists and get inspired by the brilliant health tech projects in each category, please click here.
Closing the Health Tech Awards 2022, a word from Andrew Raynes, Chief Information Officer at Royal Papworth NHS FT…
