The AHSN Network has supported many innovators to help advance our health and care system. Find out more about successful innovations supported by the NHS.
New artificial intelligence (AI)-driven imaging support software which has the potential to deliver huge benefits to hundreds of stroke patients each year and significant cost savings to the NHS has been implemented at the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust (RBH). The Oxford AHSN is supporting wider regional roll-out backed by NHS England. The CE-marked e-Stroke Suite developed by Brainomix Ltd includes tools for non-contrast CT and CT angiography brain scans, connecting physicians and facilitating information transfer. The software supports physicians in identifying patients who would benefit from acute stroke treatments, selecting patients most likely to benefit from specific interventions, such as mechanical thrombectomy.
UK ambulance services have been identified as potential beneficiaries of point of care testing (POCT) to guide patient management and care pathways, but there is little published evidence on the uses, benefits and health economics of POCT in pre-hospital settings. The Oxford AHSN, along with eight specialist paramedics based at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading, conducted a quality improvement study to look at utilising POCT to aid decision-making in patients aged over 65 presenting to South Central Ambulance Service with acute frailty syndrome.
A new point of care blood testing device is being introduced into frontline NHS services after an evaluation at three hospitals showed that it reduced A&E waiting times and helped clinicians make quicker decisions and get it right first time.
A new point of care test for the detection of flu is in the process of being commissioned by Buckinghamshire Healthcare after a winter evaluation in the Acute Medical Unit (AMU) at Stoke Mandeville Hospital. The test was developed by Fujifilm Medical Systems and is based on silver-amplified lateral flow technology in a simple cartridge with an automated reader.
Quick, accurate blood tests which can help rule out pre-eclampsia are improving care for pregnant women and their unborn babies, reducing anxiety and saving the NHS money. AHSNs are leading a rapid adoption project for these tests into maternity units across the country. Rapid uptake means these tests are becoming available to thousands more pregnant women – up from 29,000 in March 2019 to a predicted 200,000+ by the end of December 2019. The award-winning NHS/research/industry partnership has been selected for the NHS England Accelerated Access Collaborative, Innovation Technology Payment and Rapid Uptake programmes in 2019/20 which introduce an accelerated pathway to market for highly transformative innovations.
The Oxford AHSN Accelerator programme, in collaboration with BioCity and regional partners from the NHS, industry and research within the Thames Valley, offers a launchpad for entrepreneurs and their ventures to move from idea to market. CanSense and Dravya Discovery won a place on the intensive eight-week programme and pitched to investors on the final day of the Accelerator programme in November 2019.
Physiomics has developed a proprietary modelaided simulation of tumours, Virtual Tumour™, to help pharmaceutical companies improve the success rate of drug development.
CareHound is a free mobile app for people organising elderly care, designed by Consentricare, a healthtech start-up launched by two friends, after experiencing difficulties accessing information and organising social care for their elderly parents. Nearly 1.4 million older people in the UK are missing out on the care they need, due to difficulties in accessing information about what is available to them.
Funded by an Innovate UK grant, the Oxford AHSN is working with Osler Diagnostics, a health technology company developing innovative biosensor technology and products. Osler’s main product is a portable, handheld device capable of taking a drop of blood and quickly testing for a panel of biomarkers.
The Oxford-based firm Sensyne Health (formerly Drayson Health) uses artificial intelligence (AI) to develop medicines and aims to improve patient care through the analysis and commercialisation of real-world evidence from large databases of anonymised patient data in collaboration with NHS Trusts.
Ufonia is an artificially intelligent system that monitors health and wellness through a conversation with a medical device voice ‘chat-bot’. Ufonia can provide autonomous, automated telephone-based clinical follow-up, which is applicable to the capture of patient reported outcome measures in numerous clinical areas.
A single site quality improvement project, using POC blood tests to help inform decision making for patients >65 presenting to specialist paramedics with acute frailty syndrome, leading to better decision making and at scene discharge rates.
