IRELAND’S CONTACT TRACING APP

In the two weeks since Ireland’s Covid Tracker app was launched, it has been reported that 91 users have received a “close contact exposure alert”.

The app invites users to give permission for the collection of some data, including whether a user receives a close contact alert, making it one of the first to supply data showing how many people have received alerts. 

Other countries, such as Germany and Switzerland, have been using contact tracing apps that use the decentralised Apple-Google technology, which NHS England also adopted in a U-turn decision. So far, data showing how many people have received alerts has not been collected on these decentralised apps, making it difficult to gauge its level of functionality and effectiveness. 

NHS STAFF TRAINED USING TECHNOLOGY

NHS doctors and nurses in England are being given advanced training in treating COVID-19 patients from some of the UK’s leading immersive technology companies.

Resilient XR has provided the health service with interactive videos that allow healthcare staff to rotate the content 360 degrees and view it from any angle. This is particularly useful when learning the right way to put on PPE equipment.

The group is a collaboration between industry, academia and government, made up of Microsoft, volumetric production studio Dimension, digital technology innovation centre Digital Catapult, content distribution platform VISR VR, mixed-reality development agencies Fracture Reality and Make Real, the University of Leeds’ Centre for Immersive Technologies, and University College London.

EMIRATES HOSPITAL GROUP IMPLEMENTS TELEHEALTH SYSTEM

Emirates Hospital Group (EHG), has implemented Okadoc’s booking and telemedicine solution, in line with its digitisation goals to advance healthcare delivery and patient management.

All patients can now schedule and manage their appointments via the hospital’s website. Okadoc’s solution also allows patients who previously made appointments through EHG’s call centres to manage their bookings online.

Okadoc’s white label solution is integrated with EHG’s healthcare information system, InterSystems TrakCare. It will allow patients to view doctor’s availability in real time to schedule and manage appointments at any time of the day.  

Patients will be able to use the platform to access chat and video calls with their doctors, transfer and receive documents and pay for their consultations.

TRANSFORMATIVE RAISES $1.7M IN SEED ROUND

Estonian-founded healthcare startup, Transformative, announced earlier this week that it has raised a $1.7 million seed round, led by Estonia’s Tera Ventures.

The round includes funding from the Wellcome Trust, which provided Transformative a 'Healthcare Innovator Award', and from InHealth Ventures, which had previously invested in Transformative’s pre-seed round.

Transformative’s software predicts sudden cardiac arrest by analysing data from patient monitoring devices.

The startup will use its seed funding to obtain FDA clearance for its first product and to begin developing technologies that predict other life-threatening conditions.

LIVA HEALTHCARE NATIONAL WEIGHT LOSS SERVICE

Liva Healthcare is providing lifestyle and weight loss support in collaboration with LloydsPharmacy to help tackle the UK’s obesity crisis. 

LloydsPharmacy will be providing access to the treatment plan, consisting of medical interventions and support, and access to Liva Healthcare’s digital health coaching programme to patients who are living with obesity. 

To qualify, patients must have a BMI of 27+ with a weight related co-morbidity or a BMI above 30.

Liva offers patients the opportunity to select their own health coach to support them, deliver video-consultations, track vital metrics within nutrition, exercise and lifestyle, and interact with peer-to-peer support groups. 

The funding for access to the Liva Healthcare digital coaching has been provided by Novo Nordisk.

SERVIER PARTNERS WITH CHRONOLIFE

As part of the Coalition Innovation Santé, a coalition formed in March to relieve congestion in the health system, Chronolife and Servier are collaborating to accelerate the deployment of a non-invasive telemonitoring solution.

Chronolife has recently developed a smart t-shirt integrating multiple sensors and a smartphone application for the remote monitoring of patients.

This medical device marked CE Class IIa and named Keesense™, allows for the continuous monitoring of six physiological parameters; electrocardiogram, physical activity, abdominal and thoracic breathing, skin temperature, and pulmonary impedance to detect edemas.

Servier will support Chronolife in the carrying out of an experiment on the remote monitoring of 40 patients with chronic heart failure. The aim is to determine whether the smart t-shirt provides useful information to medical practitioners during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Chronolife expects to receive FDA clearance for its Keesense™ solution by year 2021, to commercialise the product in the US.

GHDDI LAUNCHES AI VIRTUAL SCREENING SERVICE

Not-for-profit research organisation, the Global Health Drug Discovery Institute (GHDDI), has launched a free AI virtual screening service for COVID-19.

Powered by Alibaba Cloud, the service aims to facilitate COVID-19 drug discovery effort globally. 

The free and web-based research engine provides researchers with an AI powered tool for virtual screening computation, which supports the prediction of SARS-CoV2.

“The high-performance computing power provided by Alibaba Cloud has significantly enhanced our drug discovery process by speeding up molecular docking and deep leaning computations, which may shorten the time needed to find a cure,” said Dr Lurong Pan, senior investigator, AI platform lead of GHDDI.

“As we are racing against time to tackle one of the worst public health crises in human history, leveraging AI and cloud computing in the research process give us a better chance to save more lives.” 

LIOPA RECEIVES INNOVATE UK FINANCIAL AWARD

Liopa yesterday announced that the company has achieved funding from Innovate UK in its “Funding Competition for Business-led Innovation in Response to Global Disruption.”

The financial award is part of a £40 million package from the UK government to boost technology and research-focused companies who are working to build platforms during the COVID-19 crisis.

Gov.uk, said: “The competition aims to fast-track the development of innovations borne out of the Coronavirus crisis while supporting the UK’s next generation of cutting-edge start-ups – helping to build the businesses of tomorrow and propel their future prosperity.”

Liopa has received investment for R&D for its SRAVI application, a communications aid for patients who cannot speak, such as those who have a tracheostomy as a result of Covid complications. SRAVI provides automated lip reading in a mobile phone app, so people can communicate while they cannot use their voice.

SRAVI is being trialed in a pilot study with the Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, led by consultant in critical care and anaesthesia, Shondipon Laha.

STUDY CONFIRMS NHS SAVINGS OF £1.7BN

An independent study released by official NHS body, The Kent Surrey and Sussex Academic Health Science Network (KSS AHSN) reveals Locum’s Nest, a digital platform which maximises workforce, would provide a 72% saving on agency spend for NHS trusts.

The research shows that every £1 invested into Locum’s Nest would give the trust an immediate ROI of £3.55 - a 72% saving.  With the NHS’s current total locum spend at approximately £2.4 billion, the total saving would be approximately £1.73 billion.

The sample of eight trusts studied and analysed over a period of six months were of varying sizes situated across the country, covering nearly 50% of South England.

Dr Nicholas Andreou, co-founder Locum’s Nest, said: “We are already active in 30 trusts across the UK and we are constantly expanding our services. We hope this new research will demonstrate to the NHS that when the right technology innovation is implemented, healthcare professionals are empowered as they are able to work in a safe and flexible culture.”