University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has launched a pilot of My Stroke Companion, a project that aims to reduce health inequalities by connecting people with personalised health information.
Developed by Cognitant and co-created by UCLH, the app is being trialed with 500 patients over the next year to provide a digital personalised support tool. The app can be customised to a patient’s type of stroke, their medication, symptoms and local support services available to them.
As part of the trial each patient will be issued a personalised information prescription. It includes explainer videos and visual content to help, as well as support with lifestyle changes.
If the pilot proves successful, it’s expected the app will roll-out to four more trusts later this year.
Dr Robert Simister, clinical lead for the My Stroke Companion project at UCLH, commented: “We wanted to work with Cognitant to develop My Stroke Companion because currently, there is a real lack of personalised support that is offered to stroke survivors, and we feel that the project is capable of bridging this gap.
“People who currently get the most from post stroke care tend to be articulate, well-educated and well supported accessors of healthcare. This new educational platform will provide everyone with the right information, at the right level and in the correct language, allowing more people to understand their stroke and increase their likelihood of recovery.”
In 2022, HTN reported on a trial at UCLH to test a new cancer machine learning algorithm. The trust and a supplier were awarded a grant of £685,316 to test in clinical practice a new proof-of-concept machine learning algorithm said to ‘accurately’ predict liver and kidney function levels in cancer patients.
