Here are our finalists for the category of Most Promising Pilot.
UX Connections & Suburban Health
Overview: Bubble is a remote health monitoring platform aiming to support communication between healthcare professionals (HCP) and patients. The app allows HCP to better monitor multiple patients across facilities and locations.
Why? The public healthcare system faces immense pressure, particularly during COVID-19. Social distancing and limitations on visits with family and carers left many, especially vulnerable populations, struggling to maintain their health.
What happened? Patients benefit from a centralised platform to track health conditions and communicate with HCPs. HCPs can access historical data to provide informed recommendations and prevent complications. The development of Bubble followed a rigorous five-phase approach: discovery, ideation, prototyping, testing, and refinement. This process began with expert interviews, requirement gathering, and competitor analysis. User flows were then created to map user interaction with various touchpoints. Based on research findings, low-fidelity wireframes were developed prioritising data relevant to HCPs on the dashboard, implementing separate communication channels for different stakeholders, and highlighting critical conditions for immediate attention. User testing sessions with HCPs and patients informed further design iterations and the creation of a user interface adhering to accessibility standards. All recorded data is displayed on a well-organised dashboard with data visualisations for easy tracking. By enabling fewer but more informed hospital visits, Bubble translates to cost savings for users.
Looking ahead. With its unwavering commitment to excellence and inclusivity, Bubble is poised to shape the future of healthcare delivery.
TClarke
Overview: The Silent Hospital Evaluation is a digital transformation pilot on the Royal Cornwall Hospitals post-natal ward, testing how digital technology can support better healthcare delivery.
Why? To transform working practices in the post-natal ward to provide a quieter, safer environment to support patient recovery.
What happened? Leading up to the pilot launch on 22 April 2024, online staff training packages were activated, and staff champions and super-users were coached by the DNV Imatis technical team. At the beginning of each shift staff collect a mobile phone, log-in to the app and are allocated their patient workload. The system works by diverting the audible call bell alert to the mobile device carried by the member of staff looking after the patient. When a call is activated a coloured button illuminates by the patient’s bed, and the staff are alerted to the call on their mobile phones with a softly audible alert tone and the screen lighting up; if they are unable to answer, the alert moves automatically to another member of staff on that shift. If the call is not answered after a set period of time an audible alert sounds and a message goes to all staff on shift. Using NASS-CAT methodology and tools, staff on the ward will be interviewed towards the end of the pilot about their experience of the technology. Results from the first evaluation survey at the end of May 2024 showed a 12 percent increase in patients reporting improved sleep during their stay.
Looking ahead. The pilot is being followed by the national New Hospital Programme transformation team, and may inform the developing Hospital 2.0 blueprint being developed for later cohorts of this programme.
University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust
Overview: University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust is celebrating a milestone in their partnership with Netcall and e18 Innovation to validate their waiting lists, reducing their waiting list by 13 percent.
Why? Traditional approaches to waitlist management are no longer sufficient. UHSx took a proactive approach to embrace innovative solutions, such an automation and patient engagement portal, to address this crisis and ensure timely patient care.
What happened? PEPs facilitate direct communication between healthcare providers and patients. By sending automated reminders and queries via SMS, email and letters with QR codes, PEPs ensure patients are regularly updated and can easily respond to their appointment needs. Intelligent Automation in healthcare operations involves using technology to streamline and optimise processes, reducing the need for manual intervention. UHSx implemented Netcall’s Waiting List validation solution, which automates the process of contacting patients waiting for their first appointment, sending reminders via SMS, email, and letters with QR codes as well as the implementation of Intelligent Automation via e18 Innovation to manage the responses and ensure the data is processed back into the UHSx patient administration system. The UHSx approach has resulted in over an 80 percent response rate and the removal of over 13 percent of patients who no longer wish to be on the waiting lists. By automating these responses, UHSx has saved over 266 hours per week in manual data entry, equivalent to seven full-time positions ( close to 14,000 hours a year).
Looking ahead. The team are excited about the future possibilities this technology holds for our organisation and are committed to further enhancing our services through strategic partnerships.
Doccla UK Limited
Overview: East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust (ENHT) partnered with Doccla to pilot MHF@Home, an innovative care model supporting heart failure patients to manage their condition at home through remote monitoring, guided self-management, and patient education.
Why? Heart failure diagnoses are placing substantial pressures on the NHS and afflicting large swathes of the UK’s ageing population. In particular, heart failure remains a disproportionately pervasive chronic illness within East and North Hertfordshire.
What happened? Doccla and ENHT completed the six month pilot programme in February 2024, after successfully onboarding 52 heart failure patients for remote monitoring. HF-related 30 day readmissions were reduced from three to 0, saving £6,822 across 52 patients in three months. For ENHT’s 4,176 registered heart failure patients, this could result in savings of ~£558,601 over 6 months. Results also indicated reductions in total A&E contacts, non-elective inpatient contacts, and heart failure A&E contacts. On the VAS scale, patients reported an average improvement in health from 63 to 71 out of 100. Measurable improvements were seen in mobility, self-care, quality of life, and improvement in anxiety/depression. Patients worked with clinicians to develop care plans best suited to their lifestyles and desired health outcomes. Patients were also provided self-management tools, and an information pack to support self-management, including the Pocket Guide to Heart Failure and My Appointment Diary.
Looking ahead. A service blueprint has been developed, and used to launch deployments in Lower Lea Valley from March 2024. Doccla has been enlisted to implement MHF@H in Derbyshire and Somerset from September 2024 onwards.
Provide Community CIC
Overview: Borne from the Virtual Bed Bureau, developed by our in-house team during COVID, VirtuWard has digitised the process of admission, care and discharge.
Why? The Virtual Hospital (VH) model of care was introduced as a direct response to the COVID-19 pandemic and winter pressures experienced towards the end of 2021. As a result, winter pressure funding was provided by NHS England and NHS Improvement (NHSE/I) in 2022 to establish several virtual wards including hospital at home.
What happened? In Essex, the virtual ward project was set to be delivered in collaboration with the Mid and South-Essex Community Collaborative. The ambition set for Mid and South-Essex Integrated Care System was to have completed the comprehensive development of 460 virtual ward beds by December 2023. Provide Digital worked with MSECC transformation leads to develop VirtuWard, a virtual ward platform that enables businesses to design virtual wards, book beds, and keep track of patient information in real-time. VirtuWard allows healthcare professionals to see what’s happening in other virtual wards in the region, and has the ability to automate workflow and generate SitRep reports automatically (every 15 minutes). The system was deployed across three services in 2023, the patient is supported in their own home, with appropriate clinical and therapy support and intervention. Using a spreadsheet, it would previously take each admin two hours every day to produce reports. Heads of service were spending one to two hours a day manually producing SitReps. This can now be done at the touch of a button.
Looking ahead. The organisation hopes that VirtuWard’s ability to be white-labelled to any organisation at cost and rapidly deployed into any Trust, Collaborative or ICS in the country, will encourage its expansion to other regions.
Alternative Futures Group
Overview: The team at AFG’s mental health hospital in Cheshire have led an innovative virtual reality project with patients to relieve distress caused by their symptoms.
Why? The goal is to reduce the distress caused by symptoms associated with mental health illness. The goals are personalised to each individual and depend on what problem the person would like to address, for example hearing voices, stress, unhelpful thinking habits, low self-esteem and panic.
What happened? Patients are offered session-based experiences using a VR headset, recording positive data around PRN usage and the reduction of pharmacological interventions, as well as positive results in quantitative outcomes in areas like cognition, retention, motor skills and navigation. The headsets are inexpensive, simple to use and can easily be sourced and used in other mental health settings alongside a smartphone. This project has seen measurable positive outcomes for patients over the last 6 months including improvements with spatial awareness, navigation, and retention. Surveys and questionnaires indicate reduction in symptoms, satisfaction of the therapy and changing attitudes. Patients have chosen to use VR instead of utilising benzodiazepine (PRN) medication – for example, a male patient living with addictions to alcohol/substances asked to use the VR headset instead of using PRN for relaxation to distract himself from racing thoughts around the urges to drink and take drugs.
Looking ahead. The team plan to roll out the project across their 5 other hospitals, as well as providing headsets for people on discharge if it has been effective as part of their treatment.
Next up: browse the entries for the category of Innovation of the Year here.
