Medipex NHS Innovation Awards 2015
Innovative NHS staff and their collaborators from the region’s universities, charities and SMEs have been celebrated at the eleventh annual Medipex Innovation Awards and Showcase.
It was clear from this year’s entries that the use of technology to improve the efficiency of services is high on the agenda for the NHS, as demonstrated in the description of the winners below.
Innovators from around the region gathered at Oulton Hall near Leeds on 8th October 2015 for a networking event and awards ceremony where seven teams were crowned winners across five categories. The awards provide a platform to showcase pioneering new ideas and technologies developed by, or with, NHS staff to improve patient care and make services more efficient.
The awards are run by Medipex Ltd., the innovation hub for NHS organisations in Yorkshire and the Humber and the East Midlands. Seventy high quality entries were received this year from which fourteen teams were selected to attend the awards ceremony as finalists. Seven of these teams were crowned winners, receiving their awards from TV presenter and NHS paediatrician Dr Ranj Singh.
GP and community care
Innovations relating to improvements in primary care for example, that promote independent living, reduce hospitals admissions including pathway or service redesign incorporating new technology, or a book, a DVD, a training course, a public health campaign.
Category winner
Delivering intravenous diuretics to patients with heart failure, in their own homes
Caroline Senior, Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust
Heart failure (HF) affects about 550,000 people in the UK, and a complication is fluid retention which can lead to shortness of breath and oedema. This is treated with oral diuretics but in some patients at the later stages of the disease, tablets become ineffective. These patients require intravenous diuretics in hospital; a procedure that takes 13 days. With British Heart Foundation support, LCHT developed a pilot scheme to deliver IV diuretics to HF patients in their own homes, using trained cardiac nurses and specially produced training manuals. 100% patients involved in the pilot said they preferred the community based treatment. A cost saving of £3013 per patient was also demonstrated through reducing hospital bed use.
Finalist
Safeguarding children app
Elaine Wyllie, NHS Scarborough & Ryedale CCG
Safeguarding children is a significant national problem with an estimated 570,800 children in England being referred to Social Care in 2014. It is important therefore that busy GPs get fast access to relevant information such as the latest guidance, local and national sources of help, as well as key contacts numbers, in order to support decision-making. The App is an easy to navigate tile based system, which is continually updated with the newest information in order to allow medical staff to make fast and effective decisions, even where no internet connection is available.
Finalist
Improving access to psychological therapies (IAPT) for people with long term physical health conditions
Kristina Fletcher, NAViGO Health & Social Care CIC
Co-morbidities, commonly associated with chronic conditions, are estimated to account for 12%-18% of all NHS expenditure. The Open Minds team developed a set of new pathways in collaboration with local physical health professionals to fill a gap in the service provision for these patients. Group sessions and 1:1 cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) sessions were provided for severe sufferers of COPD and heart failure in a two year pilot study. This demonstrated significant improvements in both mental and physical health as well as quality of life and patient experience. The data shows dependency on secondary services reduced and a radical shift from unplanned to planned care has been achieved, saving over £110,000 per year.
Secondary care
Innovations relating to improvements in secondary care for example, medicines management, reducing A&E waiting times and hospital stay, safe discharge into the community. We are particularly interested in incorporation of a technology into a service, clinical pathway redesign and cost-savings programmes associated with adoption of innovation
Category winner
Establishing an in-house orthotic manufacturing unit
Mike Pinkerton, Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Historically all patient orthoses were purchased externally but product and administration costs were significant and treatment for patients was delayed. To address these issues, an in-house facility with dedicated technical staff was established to manufacture custom-made orthoses, radically changing the delivery of the services, substantially reducing orthotic spend, enabling the clinic to deliver responsive and effective patient care. Same day repair facilities for patients are also provided, reducing the number of clinical appointments required and the number of items supplied to each patient. Cost-savings of around £147K were forecast for the year 2014/15 whilst improving patient care.
Finalist
Overnight haemodialysis to improve patient experience and clinical outcomes
James Burton, University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust
Haemodialysis patients normally attend for treatment three days a week and are immobilised for 4 hours at a time. The 23,000 people affected in the UK lose almost three full days out of work or leisure time. A survey showed a third of patients wanted to explore more flexible options, in particular, overnight dialysis in hospital. 12 months ago, using existing facilities and nursing skills, out-patient dialysis overnight began. Validated surveys have shown significant reductions in levels of anxiety and depression and improvements in physical functioning the clearances of toxins and reduction in the speed at which fluid is removed during dialysis, in patients undertaking overnight dialysis.
Mental health and wellbeing
Innovations relating to improvements in mental health care in particular that promote appropriate safe, independent, healthy lifestyles including, pathway redesign, a book, a DVD, a training course, redesign of a service, a public health campaign, or incorporation of a new technology into a service.
Category winner
MyOutcomes UK: improve outcomes, reduce costs
Dianne Tetley, Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust
A quarter of all adults are now estimated to experience some form of mental health issue within the course of a year. MyOutcomes® UK is a secure, web-based automatic feedback and data management system that supports the practical application of an Outcomes Orientated Approach to the delivery of Mental Health Services (OO-AMHS). Patient feedback before and after a session with a practitioner, is displayed graphically to enable clinicians to assess a patient’s progress in real-time with ‘flags’ to alert clinicians where there is little or no improvement. Reports can be created from aggregated data to enable clinicians and managers to monitor therapeutic outcomes by case-load, team, or service.
Category winner
The Cooking Task: an interactive tablet-based assessment of real world cognitive function
Lynne Barker, Sheffield Hallam University
Approximately 900,000 people attend A & E each year with head trauma, some of whom may require evaluation of cognitive function. Cooking requires the use of many of the skills at risk of impairment, and can provide a sensitive and reliable measure of executive function ability in a ‘real-world’ context .However, real cooking tasks require elaborate setup and are time consuming. Therefore a computer based cooking simulator which incorporates instructions and planning components in order to assess cognitive function in patients has been developed to overcome these problems.
Finalist
Child and adolescent mental health service training DVDs for professionals: the voice and experiences of young people
Lydia Burfield, Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust
Anxiety affects approximately 1 in 6 young people. It is important to help educate frontline educational professionals as to the realities of teenagers managing mental health issues and the impact this can have on their families, confidence and education. A series of training DVDs have been developed aimed at this audience on the topics of anxiety, self-harm, Solution Focused Therapy and Attention Defecit Hyperactivity Disorder. They consist of demonstrations of sessions run at CAMHS as well as young people talking about disorders such as anxiety.
Medical devices and diagnostics
Innovations relating to an idea for, or development of a new medical device, piece of equipment or diagnostic by a member or team of NHS staff including collaborations with a company or a University.
Category winner
Home monitoring of Parkinson’s Disease patients
Jeremy Prydal, University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust
Parkinson’s disease affects approximately 127,000 people in the UK and is projected to increase dramatically over the next decade as people live longer. Approximately 90% of patients develop dyskinesia (involuntary movements) within 10 years of treatment. This is a novel technology that objectively measures abnormal movements in Parkinson’s disease, both symptoms and drug side effects, which is simple, reliable and safe to use. It continually monitors the patient’s movements over a 24 hour period and analyses the data to determine how frequently and strongly dyskinesia occurs. This can then be presented to the patient’s doctor as an easy to interpret time graph, so that appropriate adjustments to the medication can be prescribed.
Finalist
Simple blood test to detect individuals with cancer
Professor Diana Anderson, University of Bradford
Cancer Research UK reports the lifetime risk of cancer was around 45% in 2009 and predicts that it will rise to around 50% by 2027. This is a novel test, modified from an existing Comet assay, which allows for a more rapid and cheaper diagnosis of potentially any cancer. The test can identify patients with any cancer, but not a specific cancer. As such, this new assay could have a potential application in the early stages of diagnostic workup and in some circumstances could decrease the need for further cancer-specific tests by identifying those at the time of assaying who do not require such tests.
Finalist
Early detection of lung cancer using high resolution autofluorescence spectrometry
Jeremy Prydal, University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust
Lung cancer is the most common malignancy worldwide, with nearly 2 million new cases each year. This is a novel non-invasive optical method for the identification of malignant lung lesions. Lung cancer is usually diagnosed by histological examination of biopsies but identification of optimal sites for sampling is difficult and missed lesions can lead to an incorrect ‘all-clear’ result. This method enables real-time detection and identification of malignant and pre-malignant lesions during bronchoscopy, thus improving the selection of sites for biopsy.
Digital health
Innovations that demonstrate cost effective management of long term conditions through digital care, streamline administrative processes such as safe discharge, script switching, medicines management, or focus on disease prevention or improved connectivity with medical devices/diagnostics.
Category winner
Healthcare supervision logbook
Thomas Gray, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Healthcare Supervision Logbook (HSL) is a simple to use Android and iOS software App that can be used to collect continuous feedback from both junior doctors and the consultants who supervise them. This allows for a much wider, real-time view of the quality of both the training that junior doctors receive and the students themselves. The data collected can be used to identify and target problem areas of training and also provide support for consultants who may be teaching poor students.
Category winner
ITU Communication Toolbox – a communication aid for acute care settings
Simon Judge, Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Over 30,000 patients a year require mechanical ventilation during their stay in an intensive treatment unit (ITU). This prevents vocal communication, severely limiting how the patients can interact with both family and medical staff. The ITU communication toolbox is an app that allows patients to communicate through a tablet computer device efficiently. The designer spent time within the ITU and also used focused literature searches and interviews with ex ITU patients, their families and staff in order to inform the design. The resulting device is anticipated to improve communication, enhancing both the emotional state of the patient and the care they receive.
Finalist
Summary care record access validation tool (SCV)
Graham Smith, Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust
Summary Care Records (SCRs) contain confidential information, therefore unauthorised access is a serious issue. Current protocol relies on manually comparing reported access by community organisations, such as pharmacies, to the actual access reported in a central database. The SCV tool uses a computational method making the process around 70 times faster than manual methods. A two year pilot of the SCV tool has shown cost benefits through freeing staff time because of faster reconciliation of the pro-forma, resulting in an increased use of the SCR in checking patients’ medications and thereby contributing to safer patient care.