Having shared a broad range of tech solutions and digital innovations from across different areas of healthcare, it’s now time to provide a platform for the Health Tech Awards 2021 finalists in the category of ‘Best Health Tech Solution of the Year’ – a section that features submissions from 15 companies, NHS trusts, innovators and organisations.
HTN would like to say a huge congratulations to all the entrants who have submitted their great work. We hope you enjoy reading about the following 15…
Nervecentre Software – Next Generation EPR
In this category, Nervecentre showcases its Next Generation EPR solution. It uses modern mobile technology to give clinical and operational teams in acute settings real-time information to help with the delivery of safer, faster, high-quality care.
The EPR has been designed with – and for – clinicians to support hospitals as they tackle challenges including patient safety and patient flow. It provides mobile tools to help trusts build a culture of real-time data entry. The functionality integrates with pre-existing Nervecentre tools such as EPMA, Order Comms, E-observations, Clinical Noting/eHandover, ED, PAS, sepsis screening, Patient Flow/Bed Management, Risk Assessments, Referrals, clinical workflow and clinical photography.
The company says it continues to be adaptable to feedback. In the past 12 months, it has taken steps to ensure its mobile EPR is user-friendly, especially in the field of integration, with enhancement including Native GP Connect and MIG support, for single-click viewing of primary care and social care records, as well as fully integrated medicine management, ordering of tests and viewing of test results, and patient photo-id on web pages and mobiles to allow easy identification of patients, which can help improve efficiency and reduce errors.
A highly available system with near zero downtime, Nervecentre places as much importance on the IT infrastructure and ensuring that the system is always available as it does on the features within the EPR. Its most recent EPR deployment at Leicester’s Hospitals was commented on by Andy Carruthers, Acting Chief Information Officer, who said: “The move to using Nervecentre is a key component of our digital strategy, which by 2022 aims to consolidate many of our existing systems into an EPR that supports patient safety, patient flow initiatives and reduces our reliance on paper through a robust single patient record. The consolidated system will also give us better connectivity – and real-time visibility – with our partners in primary, community, mental health and social care. This is critical to our plans to improve record sharing across the region.
“This is a natural progression of our relationship with Nervecentre and marks a joint commitment to future-proof Leicester’s Hospitals so it can deliver sustainable services fit for the 21st century. As we strive for digital maturity, the goal is to simplify our IT approach by building around a platform that’s mobile, modern and – crucially – well adopted by our staff. That’s why we chose Nervecentre.”
The company adds that all Nervecentre products used in the NHS have been developed in partnership with NHS trusts.
MYNDUP LTD – digital mental health services
Founded in February 2020, MYNDUP offers digital services across the mental health spectrum to provide comfort and flexibility, with a main objective of putting an end to the “one-size fits all” status quo in the UK mental healthcare sector, through a “simple and straight-forward approach” based on three essential elements: accessibility, inclusivity and affordability.
According to MYNDUP, the average waiting time to receive care through the company is about 12 hours, while it may otherwise take days or weeks to book a session with a “high-calibre” practitioner. Clients can book a one-to-one session at a time of their convenience, which will take place through a video call on a laptop, smartphone, or PC, and a practitioner will tailor a programme to suit the client’s needs and objectives.
MYNDUP says it takes several measures to make sure that its offer is as inclusive and high-quality as possible, including collaborating with experts and practitioners from different cultural and social backgrounds, so that MYNDUP clients have the choice to go with a practitioner who shares a similar background with them. The company also offers services in different languages, including those spoken by minorities, and free sessions to NHS staff, with employees of other companies having access to a free one-hour session per week if a company purchases a bundle.
MYNDUP is now serving over 50,000 employees in more than 20 countries, counting global brands like Savills and JBT among its clients. The service grew to an average of 5,000 users per month in a little over a year, and 45 per cent of session bookings come from companies’ senior management. According to MYNDUP, a case study at the company Eastdil Secured revealed that it helped the company achieve an industry average engagement rate of 43 per cent and 100 per cent of users had boosted confidence, motivation, and productivity.
Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust – ‘Bob’
This entry focus on automating ambulance handovers by using automation.
The trust said: “Handovers at Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust have been transformed through the introduction of ‘Bob’, an Intelligent Automation digital worker that automates transfer of data from South Coast Ambulance Services software into the Emergency Department system.”
Members of the IT team spent time shadowing the ED administration department and began mapping the patient record workflow and pathways from ambulance to triage. Through this mapping exercise, the concept of a digital worker (‘Bob’) employed to assist with the reduction of manual patient documentation uploads was conceived.
The entry states: “With 137 patients on average arriving at the hospital by ambulance, patient information transfers between SCAS and ED can take up to three minutes per patient. Further time is then accumulated when ambulance holds occur, leaving ED staff having to track document uploads in increased periods of demand. Driving the reduction of manual data transference between the two systems, allows staff to prioritise patient care – a clear priority in this implementation.”
‘Bob’ was piloted during select periods of 2020 and 2021, before being activated 24/7. Since going live with ‘Bob’ in April 2021, the ED team has:
- Uploaded 115 documents on average a day, resulting in IA performing 82 per cent of uploaded patient information documentation
- Supported the increase in information being uploaded before the doctor has seen the patient, from 69.3 per cent to 77.6 per cent. This, in turn, has led to increased patient safety
- Saved an average of one minute by automating the uploading of documentation. Releasing on average 2.3 hours back to ED admin staff per day, improving patient flow
Phillip Kenney, Deputy CIO, commented: “There are so many opportunities to improve the workforce efficiencies through the use of IA. Improving care we deliver, improving moral of our colleagues who are having to complete manual repetitive tasks due to silos of information, we have a really exciting programme ahead of us.”
Healthcare Gateway – Medical Interoperability Gateway
Healthcare Gateway, through the Medical Interoperability Gateway, has provided care settings across the country with real-time patient data uniting clinical systems across the UK.
The middleware technology provides real-time feeds of mental health, community, social care, acute and primary data into any system and any setting.
Highlighting integration with over 80 system partners, the platform achieved 20,271,617 data transactions in May 2021 alone.
The company notes one of its programmes, with South West London CCG, as an example of a shared care record across the region for 1.5 million citizens. The system connects data from 180+ primary care settings, two community and two social care settings into their Health Information Exchange (HIE) platform.
Sally Wiltshire, Nautilus Consulting, commented on this project: “It has been our pleasure to be working so closely with Healthcare Gateway for two phases of one of the largest health interoperability programmes in South West London over the last two and a half years. During this time they have worked with us to deliver connections from 180+ GP practices, two Community Services and two (first of type) Social Care services to our health information exchange platform. It has been our experience that their project delivery teams are enthusiastic, knowledgeable and competent, with robust project and issues management processes, including going out of their way to develop and deliver a fast-track solution to an unexpected data sharing issue with an external partner to ensure programme timelines were not breached. Their client executive team are super-approachable and engage directly in support of local projects far in excess of that experienced with many other such providers. I can confidently say that Healthcare Gateway go the extra mile, with a smile!”
accuRx – accuBook
After it became clear that GP practices would play a key part in delivering vaccines, alongside mass vaccination centres and jabs in the community, the accuRx software platform built accuBook to help its users manage over 20 million COVID-19 vaccine appointments.
Amid the context of ‘unprecedented demand’ for primary care and often limited resources to schedule a large number of inoculation appointments, and vaccination deliveries dependent on availability, the biggest problem was contacting the right patients in specific cohorts, at the right time. Without a digital solution, GPs would have to rely on calling patients and sending letters.
In response, accuRx, which aims to improve communication across healthcare teams and with patients, recognised that by being used in 98 per cent of GP Practices it was in a unique position to help.
By mid-December, the company had launched accuBook – a product for GPs to help them invite patients to book their COVID-19 vaccination appointments via SMS and also to record them. It enables practice staff to set up clinic times and capacity, and to upload csv files of patients with their mobile numbers, before sending a text out to each patient with a personalised link for them to book themselves into an appointment time that is convenient for them.
The benefits of accuBook were visible via the numbers: 5,225 GP practices have been using the solution to manage patient vaccine appointments with over 458,000 healthcare professionals using accuBook; at last count, 20,075,536 COVID-19 vaccines had been administered as a result of using accuBook, which was over one third of all COVID-19 vaccinations in the UK at that point, according to the company.
The introduction of accuBook also reduced the administrative burden across the primary care system, with GPs and administrative staff able to avoid telephone calls and letters.
Theranica Bio-Electronics – Nerivio wearable migraine relief
Theranic Bio-Electronics submits Nerivio®, which it describes as drug-free, wearable migraine relief, as its entry.
A smartphone-controlled therapeutic, it offers patients an alternative to traditional migraine medications. Worn on the upper arm, Nerivio wirelessly and remotely stimulates the body’s pain regulation system to relieve pain.
Approved by both the FDA and CE, it uses remote electrical neuromodulation (REN) to stimulate the peripheral nociceptive nerves and induce conditioned pain modulation (CPM), the body’s innate pain regulation mechanism. The message from the arm is received by a brainstem pain regulation centre that can inhibit pain signals by releasing neurotransmitters, resulting in significant non-invasive pain relief which can end the migraine attack.
The device connects to the patient’s smartphone through a personalised app that allows the patient to control the intensity of the treatment while providing a guided meditation to assist with relaxation during the treatment. Through the app’s migraine tracking diary, patients can record daily activities to identify migraine triggers and patterns, and this data can be shared with a healthcare provider for monitoring and management.
Designed with the considerations of modern daily life in mind, Nerivio enables patients to achieve pain relief without using medication and the portability of the device allows users to take it with them on-the-go and administer migraine treatment in both work and home settings.
According to the company, Nerivio was evaluated in multiple peer-reviewed clinical studies. In the original sham-controlled study of 252 patients, 66.7 per cent of patients received pain relief and 37.4 per cent were pain-free when using the solution, compared to 38.8 per cent and 18.4 per cent in the sham groups. In a real-world study of 91 adult chronic migraine patients, 59.3 per cent of patients received pain relief and 20.9 per cent were pain-free at two hours after treatment with Nerivio.
Theranica has also made Nerivio widely accessible to patients through a series of telemedicine partnerships. Consultations with a physician can be held over these online platforms, and Nerivio can be delivered directly to the patient’s door.
Doccla – virtual wards
Doccla’s virtual wards use medical technology and software to help hospitals alleviate the pressure on resources and discharge patients early, while still providing clinician care.
By using technology to monitor patients remotely and in the comfort of their own home, Doccla aims to give people the freedom and opportunity to manage their own health. The wards aim to: help achieve the NHS’s digital ambition of using advanced technology to enhance the care provided to patients; improve patient convenience and peace of mind in the comfort and safety of their own home; ensure that clinicians can focus their time on those patients that need face-to-face contact the most and have access to real-time health data; reduce hospital admission through early identification of an acute exacerbation of the underlying condition, promote self-management and ownership in the management of the underlying condition.
Designed for rapid implementation, Doccla uses a mobile app and clinical monitoring dashboard that harnesses the ‘Information of Things’ technology that patients can wear at home. Once a patient has been identified for monitoring, the company dispatches the devices, along with an encrypted mobile phone and patient information resources, in a self-contained ‘Doccla box’ via the hospital.
Patients use Doccla’s medical equipment to take their vital signs which are then submitted via the provided encrypted smartphone. In addition, patients will answer a bespoke set of questions, asked by their clinician, on their device. Clinical staff can monitor the vital signs of the patient remotely, and can also make the appropriate intervention, change parameters or frequency of recordings and questions, or make contact with the patient should it be needed. A video calling function has also been introduced.
During the pandemic, Doccla’s delivery of virtual wards was fast-tracked at hyper speed in order to meet the immediate needs of hospitals up and down the UK and help healthcare organisations to minimise patient face-to-face contact and ensure that patients could avoid any unnecessary hospital admissions.
Since March 2020, Doccla’s technology has been adopted by a number of NHS trusts including Hertfordshire, Essex, Northampton and Cambridge. NHSX also selected Doccla for its NHSX dynamic purchasing framework and the med-tech startup became the first RPM provider to win an NHSX contract to provide remote patient monitoring for Cambridge Community NHS Trust. Doccla continues to work with NHSX to provide exemplar information about how the technology should be implemented and what the cost benefits can be for a wide range of pathways.
More than 600 patients have so far been admitted to Doccla’s virtual wards, equating to over 14,000 days of monitoring, and its work with Cambridge Community Trust saw a 29 per cent reduction in Emergency Admissions and a 20 per cent reduction in A&E attendances.
St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust and System C – CareFlow Connect modules
St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (STHK) chose modules from System C’s CareFlow Electronic Patient Record (EPR) to help its clinical teams go digital with a care co-ordination platform.
Clinicians at St Helens and Knowsley are now benefiting from access to mobile, real-time patient information on the new platform, and paper-based clinical processes have been replaced with digital workflows to maximise efficiencies and standardise formats for safer care.
System C’s CareFlow Connect, a secure and mobile clinical communications and collaboration system, is designed to facilitate faster and safer care co-ordination for clinical teams within a hospital and across a care community. It optimises key clinical workflows through a range of features such as shared patient lists, electronic handover, clinical tagging, task management and referrals, and is improving access of patient information by providing clinicians with a fuller, secure, and up-to-date view of patient information on their mobile phones.
STHK is using Connect’s electronic handover functionality, for safer transfer of care between teams to improve outcomes. The system both streamlines the process and standardises the format, complete with notes that are dynamically updated by multi-professional teams and date/time stamped to create a robust audit trail. When patients move between departments, the handover information moves with them. The system also monitors and analyses a patient’s vital signs to identify deteriorating conditions and provides risk scores to trigger further necessary care.
At St Helens and Knowsley, the system has been rolled out across the majority of medical, surgical, obstetrics, gynaecology, paediatrics, community and therapy wards. It is embedded in the clinical workflows across each of these areas and is also used by around 1,600 clinical staff. Many of the wards were onboarded during the pandemic to support the trust’s response and to capitalise on the alerting functionality for observations and COVID-19 positive results.
As an intuitive secure mobile phone app, clinical staff can access and begin using it with minimal training and disruption, as well as through their own devices. So far, the care of around 19,000 patients has been managed using Connect, with 252,000 handovers updated, of which 40,000 were carried out just in the last month, along with 15,000 referrals and 42,000 clinical tags. Early analysis estimates that areas of STHK’s digitisation programme has resulted in a saving of around 2.7 million sheets of paper a year, equating to £38,000 pa of savings.
Ragit Varia, Clinical Director and a consultant in acute medicine at STHK, said: “Not only has CareFlow standardised and streamlined patient referrals but it has enabled enhanced accessibility via clinician’s devices. This means the shift lead can have a helicopter view of all acute admissions, and resources can be maximised using the task management facility.”
Inhealthcare Ltd – immunisation service
Health tech company Inhealthcare submits its immunisation service for consideration.
Inhealthcare’s immunisation solution aims to remove the administration load for staff and increase vaccine uptake, as well as provide parents and guardians with a fully digital solution to enrol their children to immunisation programmes.
The service automates the process of capturing consent, removing the need for paper forms, automates the population into the GP record and gives visibility of uptake across schools and regions.
Inhealthcare provides digital immunisation consent and health questionnaires to more than 150,000 parents and guardians, as part of school aged immunisation programmes at five NHS organisations in the UK.
Common issues in this area include that the manual process of sending and collecting letters from parents and guardians means that forms are often lost or forgotten about, and completion is low. Completed forms can also be difficult to read and paper versions require manual re-entry into clinical record, while Inhealthcare adds that they provide no overall visibility of uptake and can be open to error.
The Inhealthcare digital solution can be used across all vaccinations, enables consent to be gathered at speed, avoids the need for written letters, raises notifications for healthcare professionals to review contraindications, provides a list of eligible children, integrates the results back into the patient GP or community record, gives a real-time status of population uptake via a dashboard, and alerts and lists non-responders for targeted follow up.
After sending an email with a link to an online questionnaire, the responses are fed securely back to Inhealthcare and verified against the NHS Spine. The children eligible for immunisation are automatically booked in and the parent or guardian is informed by an automated email.
On the day of vaccination, staff have access to vaccination lists within a mobile application which works both on and offline, and once the vaccination has been given, the GP record is updated. Customised dashboards provide real-time population uptake across the given demographic and any child who does not turn up or refuses is automatically booked on to the next session, with the parent being notified by email.
After the vaccination has been given, the parent or guardian is sent a confirmation, along with details of the dose and batch number.
The solution has been evaluated by City Health Care Partnership (CHCP) and Dorset Healthcare University Foundation Trust. Findings included that, across schools in Hull, CHCP administration teams saved approximately six hours per session and a four per cent increase in uptake in the first wave was noted. While, at Dorset Healthcare University NHS, the service has been running since September 2019 and is now being used in almost 300 schools.
Doctify – healthcare review platform
Doctify focuses on improving patient care through the digital transformation of patient feedback. The company says that patient feedback allows healthcare providers to better understand and improve on the patient experience. Its review platform makes it easy for patients to leave and read reviews, and gives providers an efficient way of getting the feedback required for a patient-centric service.
Doctify is a healthcare review platform that was co-founded by two NHS surgeons in 2016. Its aim is for every patient, wherever they are in the world, to be able to read reviews and recommendations for hospitals and doctors so that they can access the best specialists. It hopes to support healthcare providers across the globe in giving patients a voice and collecting feedback that they need to understand and learn from their patients’ experiences.
The company cites ad-hoc collection of feedback, often through paper forms, and delayed replies being sent through the post as issues facing healthcare providers. This lapse in time, it says, often leads to low engagement and low response quality, while healthcare providers were also often unable to respond to or acknowledge a patient’s experience.
Doctify aims to transform the healthcare review process, making it easier and more effective. When healthcare providers sign up, their patients get automated feedback requests after appointments. Doctify feedback tablets and QR codes can also be used to collect online reviews. Once reviews are submitted, they are verified and vetted to ensure that they are real, reliable and representative – a process that takes between 24 and 48 hours. Patients are sent a confirmation that their feedback has been submitted and they can see their reviews on the Doctify platform. From their dashboard, healthcare providers can also respond to reviews.
Every healthcare provider subscribed to Doctify also has access to a Doctify Insights and Analytics Suite. This houses all of their review data, filterable by star rating, date and keywords. The dashboard reduces the time and resources previously associated with collating and reviewing feedback. It enables healthcare providers to easily analyse reviews, view trend data and gain actionable insights. The real-time reviews also enable providers to monitor and track any service improvements that they make.
Doctify was also built to address issues faced by patients looking for healthcare, with the ultimate goal of improving the care that they go on to receive. It is constructed so that patients can easily find and access the very best specialists, through free access to the platform, where the company houses all the verified reviews collected by healthcare providers that subscribe. Patients can search by location, condition and procedure to find suitable hospitals, clinics and doctors, and then look at the number of reviews they have received, and their overall star rating for bedside manner and explanations. They can also look through the personalised written feedback left by other patients, find out healthcare professionals’ experience, qualifications and specialisms, along with details on pricing, opening hours and locations.
The Insides Company – The Insides System for chyme reinfusion
The Insides System provides treatment option for patients suffering from intestinal failure by performing chyme reinfusion.
The Insides System functions by returning lost fluid (chyme) from enterocutaneous fistulae (ECF) and enterostomies back to the distal gut. This process, known as chyme reinfusion is historically performed manually by first removing the stoma appliance from the patient, physically straining the chyme, and manually syringing it back into the distal gut through the stoma or fistula limb via a gastric tube.
By contrast, The Insides System is a novel pump device that works in conjunction with an existing stoma appliance. The device consists of a hand-held rechargeable driving unit, a power charger, and an impeller pump. The pump connects to a specialised gastric tube and sits within the stoma appliance. The major challenge with the pump is engineering it small enough that it will fit in the ostomy appliance, but powerful enough to pump a range of chyme viscosities. The driver magnetically couples to the pump and gently returns a bolus of chyme to the downstream gut.
The company developed five driver speeds to allow the patient to control the rate of infusion, depending on comfort and viscosity. Its design also allows for user control without impeding patient independence, while allowing full separation of all electrical components from intestinal fluids.
The solution works in conjunction with the existing standard of care to restore bowel continuity and reduce the need for PN. Patients can also be trained to use the device at home.
The Insides System aims to reduce the length of hospitalisation and reduce or prevent complications related to parenteral nutrition, such as catheter-line associated blood-stream infections. With the introduction of chyme reinfusion as a treatment option for enterocutaneous fistulae patients, the company says 90 per cent of users successfully wean off parenteral nutrition and that those who do could be discharged quicker. The portability and patient-reported ease-of-use of The Insides System allows for chyme reinfusion to continue at home, which The Insides Company says is a more comfortable and cost-effective approach for the patient.
HumWell Private Limited – app offering primary healthcare
HumWell is a ‘social health tech enterprise’ that sees experienced health professionals and technology experts collaborate to envision a Pakistan where ‘right to health’ is enjoyed by all. The app offers primary healthcare to any mobile user in Pakistan, 24/7, with features including detailed and maintained medical records, consultation packages, a healthcare library, on-demand doctor consultations, and information about nearby health facilities.
By utilising the concept of telemedicine, HumWell aims to provide reliable services to users, with the help of its professional medical experts. Through video calls, doctors can examine patients from a distance and offer round-the-clock primary healthcare consultation. The free healthcare library on the application was created to facilitate health literacy and ensure the provision of promotive and proactive healthcare services.
There is also year-round, 24/7 in-app technical support to assist with any problems and, for every user, HumWell maintains detailed medical records that are taken into account during medical examinations by qualified doctors. Patient profiles are consistently updated for future use and the app can guide people to any nearby, trusted healthcare facilities.
Sensyne Health – MagnifEye
The clinical artificial intelligence company, Sensyne Health is our next platformed entrant with its AI-powered reading and analysis of diagnostic tests – through the MagnifEye solution. As the COVID-19 pandemic increased the need for the accurate reading of lateral flow tests to support clinical decision making and disease surveillance, Sensyne Health developed a smartphone application that uses deep learning to automate the accurate reading of lateral flow diagnostic tests in under two seconds.
According to Sensyne Health, the limitation of lateral flow tests is their ‘reliance on subjective interpretation by the human eye’, which can be exacerbated in uncontrolled environments such as self-testing by the visually impaired, or in poor lighting conditions. With COVID-19, this can lead to positive cases being missed when the positive test line is present, but too faint to be detected by the human eye.
The company responded quickly to this challenge by developing MagnifEye, a deep learning, cloud-based algorithm that can read lateral flow test results beyond the human visible spectrum. It assists users and health professionals to perform diagnostic tests and share results, while the algorithm can be trained to read any lateral flow test and potentially reduce the risk of human error. Reading the lateral flow test takes under two seconds, providing organisations with ‘near real-time visibility’, and the solution is available as a complete app or alternatively, the photo capture and/or image processing algorithm can be provided as an SDK (Software Development Kit) or as an API (Application Programming Interface) for use on both Android or iOS phones.
The key features and potential benefits of MagnifEye include: improved accuracy of reading lateral flow tests; supporting healthcare provider-assisted testing programmes for high volume testing at multiple sites; near real-time visibility of population health; custom app development; potential greater test usage; and robust data security via Azure cloud with data domiciled in country of origin, encrypted and held in secure cloud storage with robust cyber security.
In March 2021, Sensyne signed an agreement with the Department of Health & Social Care (DHSC) to pilot its MagnifEye technology for use with the Innova COVID-19 lateral flow test, and results showed that MagnifEye increased sensitivity (the ability to identify positive tests correctly) from 92.08 per cent to 97.6 per cent and specificity (the ability to identify negative tests correctly) from 99.85 per cent to 99.99 per cent in reading lateral flow tests, as compared to a human reader, while a significant proportion of positive cases that were previously missed were detected. At Assisted Testing Sites (ATSs) the algorithm also identified 24.4 per cent of true positive tests that were missed by trained operators and sensitivity increased from 16 per cent to 100 per cent.
Hertility Health – women’s reproductive health services
Hertility Health says that it is “on a mission to transform women’s healthcare” by pioneering tailored diagnostics and next-generation advancements through predictive algorithms. Its area of focus is infertility and helping women from menstruation to menopause. Among its services are testing, results, teleconsultations, counselling and access to experts.
Targeting misinformation in women’s health, the company aims to “revolutionise the world of reproductive health” by educating, empowering and “making knowledge the norm”.
By providing an at-home blood test, along with insights, actionable advice and a route to care, Hertility Health helps women understand their risks of infertility. The tailored hormone tests enable women to get personalised answers that are unique to their individual health needs and begins with an online questionnaire which takes into account over 1,500 variables to calculate the risk of certain pathologies.
Once a sample has been collected and sent to accredited labs, the results are compiled into a digital report, which accounts for over 54,000 variables and explains the hormone levels in an understandable way, taking into consideration all lifestyle factors.
According to Hertility Health, one in three women will suffer from a reproductive health condition in their lifetime and one in seven couples will experience infertility. In addition, it notes that 80 per cent of women suffer hormonal imbalance, while people from ethnic minority backgrounds are over 25 times less likely to access fertility treatment.
Eager to address some of the barriers to accessing support – in both the NHS and private sector – Hertility Health provides women with detailed reproductive health testing and results, the option to speak to a fertility expert, and also a dedicated family building journey for same sex couples. The company says that, on average, one in five Hertility Health users have been found to have a previously undiagnosed reproductive condition which has been revealed as a result of testing with them.
ImproveWell – feedback systems
ImproveWell technology supports organisations to capture continuous, real-time and actionable insight from the frontline to improve staff experience and the quality of patient care.
The tool aims to address the ‘feedback loop’ from frontline to management on a continuous basis.
The solution is grounded in three principles: those on the frontline are best-placed to improve the systems they work in; giving staff a voice and empowering them to find solutions to the challenges they face is fundamental to engagement and positive experience; and a happier workforce leads to better patient outcomes.
The company said: “ImproveWell’s feedback systems provide a platform for people to drive change, together. 24/7 everyone can: suggest ideas for improvement; share how their workday is going; and complete tailored pulse surveys.
“An intelligent data dashboard helps group and organisational leads to capture real-time data, track workforce sentiment, prioritise quality improvement efforts, measure change and publish reports to complete the feedback loop.”
South West Academic Health Science Network published an independent evaluation of the use of ImproveWell at Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust. The report showed that ImproveWell is an effective solution to empower staff to make positive changes that benefit staff morale, create resource efficiencies and improve patient safety and experience.
Key findings:
- ImproveWell boosts morale and engagement: 75 per cent of staff using ImproveWell reported feeling able to improve their area of work compared to the 53 per cent scored by the Trust as a whole.
- ImproveWell gives staff a stronger voice: 85 per cent of users of ImproveWell felt it empowered them to implement ideas for change.
- ImproveWell helps to prioritise improvement initiatives: Staff reported that improvements and changes were implemented at a quicker rate than before ImproveWell. Through ImproveWell, ideas get recognised and actioned.
- ImproveWell positively affects patient safety and experience, efficiencies and cost savings: The ideas suggested by staff improved patient safety, increased efficiency, released more time for patient care, and made significant financial savings for the trust.
