Technologies including video-game rehabilitation, wearables for patients with chronic disease, and a ‘USB port’ for amputees, are among those selected for the second cohort of DigitalHealth.London’s Accelerator programme.
The programme, that aims to speed up adoption of technology in London’s NHS, relieving high pressure on services and empowering patients to manage their health, supported 31 companies on the first cohort to obtain 38 contracts with the NHS over the past 12 months.
The chosen companies aim to build on the success of the first cohort, who have had strong uptake across the capital:
- Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, together with its charity CW+, is trialling five digital health solutions including Medopad, a mobile device to monitor heart failure patients at home, and Physitrack, offering remote, video guidance for physiotherapy patients.
- Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust expects to save £2.5 million each year by reducing missed appointments through DrDoctor’s appointment booking app, resulting in ‘no show’ rates falling by 40%.
- The London Ambulance Service has adopted Perfect Ward, cutting out medicines paperwork for faster ambulance care, that are now being implemented across over 70 ambulance stations in the capital.
- North West London Clinical Commissioning Groups are tackling diabetes through OurPath; a fitness wristband and 3G connected weighing scales to provide clients with real-time updates to help tackle type-2 diabetes, which achieved an average 5.3kg weight loss in studies.
Hannah Harniess, Programme Director, DigitalHealth.London Accelerator, said: “With ever-increasing pressures on health and care services, the Accelerator aims to lead companies into the complex world of NHS procurement; speeding up adoption of innovation and ensuring that patients benefit from emerging new technology, more rapidly. We are blown away by the success of the first cohort and our NHS Navigators are keen to get started with this next set of fresh, talented entrepreneurs.”
Deputy Mayor of London for Business, Rajesh Agrawal, said: “Health tech companies have long struggled to work with the complex, archaic health system and I’m extremely proud that our programme has taken some of this pain away. London is the digital capital of Europe and this convergence of tech and health means smarter ways for people to manage and improve their health, and a release of some of the burden on our hospitals.”
Zoë Penn, Medical Director, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust said: “The Accelerator has been a key component of our innovation and quality improvement portfolio this year. We have worked with our charity CW+ to secure some high quality, transformative and patient-centric digital health projects, engaging with over 45 staff across both our hospitals. I shall be looking forward to a second even more successful year.”
Dr Roger Chinn, Deputy Medical Director at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Working with our charity and the accelerator has produced meaningful, well designed digital health projects across the Trust. What I find particularly encouraging is not only how this innovative digital health portfolio complements our quality improvement drive and values, but also how positive its impact has been on all staff and patients involved.”
