VitalityHealth and Doctify's new website. Health insurer VitalityHealth has partnered with Doctify, a leading online review and booking platform for medical consultants. They have developed ‘Vitality Specialist Finder’, a website where members can refine their search for doctors by speciality, rating and location, leave reviews and book appointments 24 hours a day.
Dr Ali Hasan, clinical operations director, VitalityHealth, said the “new Vitality Specialist Finder will provide faster, better access to care for patients as well as create more transparency. Our aim is to use this platform to enhance the relationship between patients and health specialists and to make it easier for our members to receive the best quality treatment and care.”
NHS by Alexa. The NHS is working with Amazon to provide NHS healthcare information through Amazon’s voice-assisted Alexa technology. Voice commands will allow patients (particularly the elderly, blind or those who cannot easily use the internet) to access verified health information (but not medical advice) from the NHS website.
The hope is that this partnership will ease the pressure on the NHS and GPs by providing information for common illnesses in a matter of seconds.
As the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Matt Hancock said, “We want to empower every patient to take better control of their healthcare and technology like this is a great example of how people can access reliable, world-leading NHS advice from the comfort of their home, reducing the pressure on our hardworking GPs and pharmacists”
Clinerion expands into South America. Clinerion partners with Chilean-based B-TRIALS in order to further expand the Patient Network Explorer into South America. This collaboration marks the growth of the coverage of the Patient Network Explorer in hospitals in Chile, allowing patients more access to innovative treatments. The patients will be more involved in clinical trials and therefore break-through products will be launched at an accelerated rate.
"The implementation of the Clinerion's Patient Network Explorer platform in hospitals and clinics, added to the quality of the specialist physicians in Chile, can lead the country to be a reference in clinical research and B-TRIALS will be the gear to make this happen," says Pablo Garcia, commercial director of B-TRIALS.
New acquisition. McKesson UK, owner of LloydsPharmacy, has bought the NHS prescription reminder and tracking app, Echo. Using the app, patients can order repeat medication from the GP and have it delivered for free to their homes. Users can also get dosing instructions by simply scanning the barcode of their medication. Echo’s technology is already being used by thousands of people every week and the hope is that this can be expanded with Mckesson’s existing customer base.
“By working with Echo we are accelerating the development of our digital strategy. The technology they have developed is used by thousands of people already and their operation allows them to fulfil thousands of repeat prescriptions every week,” said Catherine McDermott, chief digital officer at McKesson UK.
“With our existing customer-base and Echo’s tech, we can help people to take more control over how they manage their health online,” Toby Anderson, CEO at McKesson remarked.
New support for connected care delivery conference. Royal Phillips announced sponsorship (alongside Teletracking) of BRI Network’s Command Centre Summit on Connected Care Delivery. The summit will focus on how to best co-ordinate patient care, one of the most pressing challenges facing healthcare.
In the two day summit, the sponsors will give a joint presentation on the benefits of centralised care through command centres or clinical operation centres in providing real-time clinical and operational insights.
As Jeroen Tas, chief innovation and strategy officer at Phillips highlights, "Connected care is positively impacting patient care operations, and we look forward to teaming up with TeleTracking in this unique Command Center Summit to provide health systems with the insights and tools they need to impact the Quadruple Aim of improving patient outcomes, enhancing patient and staff experiences, and lowering the cost of care."
