In the category of ‘best use of data’, we are pleased to announce the following finalists in the Health Tech Awards 2022:
Here (Care Unbound)
Overview: Here (Care Unbound) collaborated with Preston Park Community PCN, a collaboration of five practices in Brighton, to develop a tool called PCN Analytics.
Why? There is a lack of workforce capacity and capability within the local primary care sector to develop data analytics fit for purpose to improve patient access and outcomes.
What happened? The approach to PCN Analytics involved using toolsets that support the rapid prototyping of solutions to extract data from practice systems into a data warehouse. Then, a range of Power BI dashboards were built to support different workstreams. This allowed rapid comparison of the data between practices to build a PCN-level view. A second project involved mapping patient data to care homes in the PCN to support work around frailty, to help identify those who may not be classed as ‘frail’ under existing measures. A near time dashboard view was produced and shared across the PCN to provide a collective view of care home patients and activities.
Looking ahead. Here is evaluating other tools and preparatory systems with a ‘technology agnostic’ approach so that they can spread learning more widely, with principles remaining the same: to put PCNs in the driving seat, understand the data, and build quickly using whatever tools are available.
Intelligent Lilli
Overview: Intelligent Lilli’s remote monitoring technology arms care providers with data and insights to enable a proactive approach to home care, allowing more accurate determining of care needs and requirements, and facilitating the best possible care outcomes for vulnerable people so that they can live independently and safely at home.
Why? At present, many technology-enabled care solutions take a reactive approach, with alarm-based systems which flag incidents after they have happened. Lilli’s solution aims to identify warning signs of deterioration, protecting the individual and preventing the need for complex or costly treatment.
What happened? Lilli’s 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 analyses the data to provide a baseline of what a ‘normal’ pattern of behaviour for an individual looks like across five key behaviours: independence, sustenance, night-time activity, movement and personal hygiene. Care workers can access the data in real-time. Lilli can spot and flag then deviations to the normal pattern occur that could indicate a declining or improving state of health.
Looking ahead. Following a successful pilot run by Dorset Council, which saw the tech rolled out across five social care teams, Lilli’s focus is on reaching as many individuals as possible to help them live safely in their own homes for longer.
Lancashire Teaching Hospitals
Overview: Lancashire Teaching Hospital’s Electronic Palliative and Care Coordination System (EPaCCS) enables information on patient’s wishes and preferences to be shared across sectors to support personalised, compassionate, safe and timely joined-up care at end of life.
Why? It improves quality of end of life care, optimises patient wellbeing and comfort, reduces inefficiencies and ensures that the most up-to-date information is used to support decision making in the individual’s best interests.
What happened? The system ensures that unified data and information is made accessible across boundaries, coordinating care around a person’s end of life with compassion and efficiency. It helps by developing effective communication between staff and patients and transforms silos of data, reducing missed opportunities to identify a person’s preferences. The information sharing supports the sharing of anticipatory clinical management plans and improves the experience for the person and their loved ones by preventing the need to repeat information to different teams. The main aims to achieve are: detailed understanding of individual wishes; achievement of preferred place care; achievement of preferred place of death; improved symptom-management; and improved patient and family satisfaction; and helping loved ones in their bereavement process.
Looking ahead. Data reporting metrics provide detail for insight and for continuous improvement of the system as time passes.
Eleven Health
Overview: Eleven Health uses personal and community data for empowered self-management of Sickle Cell Disease (SDC)
Why? Although a lot of people with SCD have to manage their own condition, a lot of this self-management relies on trial and error and carries a substantial risk of hospitalisation if the condition is mismanaged.
What happened? Eleven Health uses patient data to predict upcoming pain crises up to a week in advance, with a minimum of 85 percent accuracy, helping patients to stay out of hospital and manage their own health. Through the app, patients can share their tracked data with their health team to provide in-depth insight into how they are doing without the pressure of remembering and recounting it all in an appointment. Eleven combines patient-reported pains cores and data cared from wearable devices to predict upcoming vaso-occlusive crises, enabling patients to plan ahead or scale back activity to reduce the risk of having a crisis. Throught his, Eleven aims to reduce the number of hospital visits patients need to make and help them care for their condition proactively.
Looking ahead. Along with ensuring better quality care for people with SCD in the future, data from Eleven Health is used to power research for the benefit of the entire SCD community.
TransformUK
Overview: TransformUK sought to develop an understanding to vaccine hesitancy and tackle misinformation through a dashboard and toolkit to increase vaccine confidence and bring an end to the pandemic.
Why? With vaccine development an important priority in 2021, there were concerns about how fast the vaccines had been created and approved, fuelled by misinformation across news and social media channels.
What happened? TransformUK created a global view of COVID-19 vaccination, mapping the world’s population and overlaying health data to understand who had been vaccinated. Then survey data was overlayed on vaccine confidence to understand attitudes, enabling the world population to be split into four groups; already vaccinated, vaccine acceptors, vaccine rejectors, and undecided. A working dashbard was developed with a communications strategy and toolkit for the G7 Summit in June 2021, with the intention for the G7 to co-fund further development to support global roll-out of vaccines. The dashboard and toolkit supported decisions on priority areas in developing countries for vaccine distribution, highlighting the areas requiring the most investment in communications to change vaccine attitudes.
Looking ahead. The principles of the global dashboard can be used for other problems in society, such as extremism or obesity. In addition, individual countries can create private versions of the dashboard and add their own data to create deeper insights supporting the roll-out in their own country.
Radar Healthcare
Overview: Four Seasons Health Care Group used Radar Healthcare’s Builder License to tailor analytics for its whole care home group, with dashboards making data accessible for everyone in the organisation and driving improvement across facilities.
Why? The tool allows organisations to see what is working well and how they can use that best practice to drive improvement across their organisation, resulting in improved care for patients.
What happened? Radar Healthcare’s Analytics Builder allows users to easily create their own bespoke dashboards, understanding and spotting trends. Four Seasons Health Care Group created dashboards that suited their nationwide business and reports that drilled down into fine details in individual homes. This allowed them to make a product that served their whole organisation. Four Seasons were pleased with the ability to add context notes to their dashboards which allowed people who aren’t analysts to look at the graphs and understand what they mean, building their confidence in data. Staff engagement has been positive, with health and safety meetings now dedicated to actioning strategies rather than spending time making sense of multiple datasets.
Looking ahead. Four Seasons is looking into automation and workflows to make sure that their home managers across the country are receiving the same documents and producing the same reports.
Ethical Healthcare Consulting
Overview: Ethical Healthcare Consulting has designed a common and pragmatic data sharing approach for the South East.
Why? If data doesn’t currently flow easily across integrated care system boundaries, patient care can be piecemeal and unsafe.
What happened? Ethical Healthcare Consulting was commissioned by NHS England to develop a blueprint for data sharing across ICSs in the South East. This included a target architecture that would apply a consistent approach and set of standards that would enable cross-border data sharing and work alongside existing initiatives such as shared care records. It also included a blueprint for image-sharing using the region’s diagnostic systems, and infrastructure to support the Community Diagnostic Centres that are emerging from the region’s acute trusts. Firstly, a Data Strategy was developed, which outlines the data sharing architecture and recommendations for ICSs, ultimately giving ICSs the autonomy to build the proposed architecture according to local needs and clinical priority whilst confirming to the same model and standards as other ICSs. Then a Diagnostics Strategy was developed, intended to support the data needed for the region’s diagnostic work.
Looking ahead. The blueprints provide a data sharing roadmap to support ICSs and improve patient care for the future.
Transforming Systems
Overview: Transforming Systems developed SHREWD Elective, a tool to use real-time data to tackle the COVID-19 backlog in planned care.
Why? SHREWD Elective was born from the need to manage the excessive number of patients awaiting elective services, and delays caused by the pandemic.
What happened? SHREWD Elective was designed with NHS England and Improvement. It is a real-time, data-sharing solution that provides a strategic overview of demand and capacity, diagnostics and cancer, across all specialities and sub-specialties. It can perform at trust level, across an ICS, or more widely at regional or national level. The solution captures complex digitised data from all NHS elective care providers across a geographical footprint, including independent sector partners, and creates instant, whole-system visibility of capacity and demand. The single version of the truth identifies growing pressure in planned care, supporting system-wide response efforts in line with the vision of centralised elective care hubs. It displays live data via a dashboard dial and heatmap view, and is available on web and mobile devices, so it is portable and immediately accessible for all users. Ultimately, it enables an integrated, tactical response to reduce pressure, resolve excess waits and delays, and improve patient flow.
Looking ahead. Supporting organisations in tackling the backlog helps staff and patients now and in the future, reducing waiting times and increasing efficiency.
