Friday 25 September 2015

Google to expand its health information role

Will add at-a-glance details on hundreds more health conditions







Google health information search


Google is set to expand the health applications of its ‘knowledge graph’ by providing at-a-glance details on hundreds more conditions.


For a company whose health focus has been increasingly associated with tangible technology of late, it’s a sign that it’s not ignoring its efforts in health information.


The search giant first started providing treatment and symptom information – applying the ‘semantic search’ capabilities of its knowledge graph – directly into its health search results pages in February, but will now ramp up its efforts.


The number of conditions included will soon be doubled, with over 900 in total covered by information on areas such as their symptoms, treatments and prevalence.


In addition to this Google will also provide a ‘download PDF’ link to help patients take the information to their doctor, something – Google said – has been a top request from doctors themselves.


Google product manager Prem Ramaswami wrote in a blog: “Health conditions continue to be among the most important things people ask Google about, and one of our most popular features.


“As before, we’ve consulted and worked closely with a team of doctors to curate and validate this information. We’ve gotten lots of positive, helpful feedback from our users and medical professionals, and we’ll keep working to bring useful health information to your fingertips.


The feature is still only provided in US English, but Ramaswami said Google plans to expand it to more languages and regions.


As part of the changes Google will also tweak the way the service works, making visual design improvements and more specific triggering to speed the journey from search to information.


The company made a point of noting that neglected tropic diseases would be included – information on Dengue Fever is already included and Chikungunya and Leishmaniases will join it soon.


The expansion appears to have been prompted by an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in New York early last month, when searches for the disease shot up, and Google quickly updated the health conditions feature to provide information on Legionnaires’ right up front, from a simple search.


The move is unlikely to overshadow Google initiatives such as its smart contact lens technology, robotic surgery, diabetes tools, wearable health tracker or robotic pill, but it’s a timely reminder of day-to-day utility of ‘Dr Google’.


Source PMLive http://www.pmlive.com/blogs/digital_intelligence/archive/2015/september/google_to_expand_its_health_information_role_828148








Google to expand its health information role

Tuesday 8 September 2015

Kent NHS 'to send surgery patients to France'










NHS patients in Kent could soon be travelling to France for surgery under a new deal being finalised.




Centre Hospitalier de CalaisCentre Hospitalier de Calais hopes to see the first UK patients before Christmas

Centre Hospitalier de Calais has bid to provide services to patients in the county, NHS commissioners said.


South Kent Coast Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) said the “finer details” were being worked out.


People who chose to have treatment in France would pay for their own travel and incidental costs. Unison said it was an “admission of failure”.


Hazel Carpenter, chief accountable officer for South Kent CCG, said treatment in France would be an option if a patient wanted it, in discussion with their GP.





She said commissioners recently invited organisations to provide general surgery, gynaecology, cataract surgery, pain management and orthopaedics to apply for the work, and two French providers applied as well as several English providers.


“We carried out a careful assessment of the services they offer and are visiting sites,” she added.


“The two French providers, among others, fulfilled our criteria and we expect to finalise a contract with them.”



Map of Kent and Calais

Analysis: Mark Norman, BBC South East Today Health Correspondent


The devil is in the detail here. It seems a good idea to use spare capacity in France for NHS patients waiting for general surgery, but…


Both the French hospital and the NHS say Calais clinicians will share patient information with NHS GPs but the hospital director in Calais was unsure how that would work in practice


While the NHS has said post-operative checkups could be done in France or via Skype it remains to be seen if patients will be prepared to travel or use the technology available.


What happens if something goes wrong? – 24-hour access to the surgical team sounds great but will sick patients have to cross the Channel?


And it’s the NHS who will have to pay for their care after a month.


Meanwhile, the East Kent Hospitals Trust, already in special measures and struggling financially, could now lose the income from up to 300 patient operations a year.


The French hospital hopes to see the first UK patients before Christmas and plans to treat between 300 and 400 NHS patients per annum.



Martin Trelcat, general manager of the Calais hospital, said it had been giving English classes to about 70 nurses and language would not be a barrier.


Simon Bolton, Unison spokesman, said it was “an admission of failure” by the NHS.


He said the CCG had failed to make sure the NHS could tackle waiting lists, which he said were lengthening because of government cuts.


Adding that patients wanted to be treated as quickly and as close to home as possible, he said: “The idea that this is some great consumer choice is frankly crazy.”


Damian Collins, Folkestone and Hythe MP, said it was sensible to use a fantastic hospital that might be less than an hour away from some and more accessible than hospitals in London.


He said using Calais would help deal with NHS overcrowding and added: “If this deal hadn’t been struck, I’m sure we’d have had people coming to us saying there’s capacity in the hospital in Calais.”


‘Comparable costs’


A spokeswoman for the NHS South East Commissioning Support Unit said the deal was not a waiting list initiative but rather about following EU competition rules which gave patients more choice.


She said French providers would operate like other NHS referrals where GPs would share patient information and also receive discharge and care plan details after the treatment.


French and English providers were bound by the Data Protection Act with regard to patient records, she added.


Providers would give patients 24-hour access to the surgical team for two weeks after treatment, and would pay for any readmission to hospital within 30 days of discharge.


And follow-up checks after surgery could be done by phone or Skype or at another visit to the hospital, she said.


She said the cost and distances of choosing a London or French hospital were easily comparable.


Source BBC News/Health http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-34171683













Kent NHS 'to send surgery patients to France'

Monday 7 September 2015

Taking the lab approach to enabling innovation in healthcare – Dr Harpreet Sood

The Senior Fellow to the Chair and Chief Executive’s Office of NHS England explains how cutting edge ideas can be turned into reality:


nhsengland_logo





The notion of being bound by only what we know, and the confines of traditional thinking, are a deterrent to real and meaningful innovation.The concept of innovation labs or innovation hubs have been the powerhouse of the creative and design breakthrough in the private sector – but the health research and service delivery field continues to apply 20th century approaches to solve 21st century challenges.

At the Health and Care Innovation Expo 2015 this week, the energy and enthusiasm was evident that healthcare professionals from across the country want to get involved with initiatives that allow them to innovate. However, what inhibits their disruptive thinking and ambition is the lack of a conducive system and infrastructure.


Additionally, healthcare remains a silo operated industry with the NHS lacking a viable demand for innovation.


For this to change we need to encourage more cross fertilisation of ideas – both within the NHS, which is lacking due to the fragmentation of the system, as well as with people from outside healthcare – designers, developers, engineers, scientists and business people to name a few.


This will ensure fresh perspectives are brought to the table and can contribute towards the development of sustainable and realistic solutions.


A potential solution for encouraging innovation and out-of-the-box thinking is to develop innovation labs to help healthcare professionals ideate, implement and execute with resources provided at each point of the innovation value chain to overcome barriers.


These labs, which can take the form of a specialised physical environment or a virtual hub, can be operated from within hospitals or GP federations.


The labs have dedicated resources for innovation and are responsible for developing, conducting rapid prototypes and maturing ideas from frontline staff by hand-holding and guiding them through the innovation journey.


Ideas can be chosen via competitions or by identifying high level themes that need addressing. Through the networks the lab can develop, it can allow one to draw on diverse perspectives from across and within the system.


This method has a twofold benefit: Firstly, providers benefit from the innovation in-house and develop a culture that encourages unique perspectives to solving common challenges. By being engaged in the innovation process from the start, staff and patients develop a greater sense of ownership over the solution and, therefore, a greater tendency to use the solution.


Secondly, when the innovation gains traction and matures, it can provide an extra source of revenue through commercialising or licensing the product, and the tech transfer offices at Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs) can play an important role in realising this.


There are examples of labs dotted across the world such as the MindLab in Denmark or the Harvard Innovation Lab in Boston but many have a limited healthcare focus. In the US, an increasing number of the large academic medical centres have now created their own innovation labs such as Garfield Center at Kaiser Permanente and the iHub at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.


These programs allow large organisations to capitalise on the human capital that exists in their organisations and help employees be more engaged in innovation.


We are starting to see the emergence of this approach in the UK with innovation organisations such as Nesta as well as provider-led organisations such as the HELIX at Imperial College London that work closely with Imperial College NHS Trust.


These organisations are examples of how with dedicated resources, the skills gap of ideation, execution and re-engineering can be bridged, which is a key component of an innovation lab. With these organisations, solutions are co-developed with providers as partnerships are established at a very early stage.


Taking ideas to the next stage and into fully-fledged products and services beyond prototypes requires not only dedicated resource and expertise, but also time. Previous innovation incubators have had mixed responses in terms of success but we need to get the balance right between recognition and reward through both financial and non-financial incentives.


Innovating in one’s spare time and on the ‘margin’ does not have the same effect. The launch of the ‘Clinical Entrepreneur’ scheme by Professor Bruce Keogh at NHS Expo is an excellent initiative and example of where there is protected time for clinicians to focus on innovation.


We are at the intersection of disruption and integrated health systems and providers can make innovation more of an in-house process. By combining the lab approach principles with the dedicated time for employees can be an enabler for innovation and also help remove the silos and segregation that exist within organisations. We just need the leadership to help facilitate this. 



Image of Senior Fellow, to the Chairman and Chief Executive’s Office of NHS EnglandDr Harpreet Sood, is currently Senior Fellow, to the Chairman and Chief Executive’s Office of NHS England.


Harpreet trained as a clinical doctor at King’s College London and Imperial College Business School and practiced as an academic trainee in East London.


Following this he did a Masters in Public Health (MPH) at Harvard University where he focused on international health policy and co-founded a digital health start-up.


Post MPH, Harpreet was a Deland Fellow in health policy and management at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a large academic medical centre in Boston.


Harpreet’s portfolio of work at NHS England includes implementing the National Diabetes Prevention Programme.


Source NHS England http://www.england.nhs.uk/2015/09/04/harpreet-sood/






Taking the lab approach to enabling innovation in healthcare – Dr Harpreet Sood

Friday 4 September 2015

GP access a top priority for NHS

GP access will be a touchstone for demonstrating how the NHS is doing in the future. That’s the view of Ros Roughton, Director of NHS Commissioning, who today outlined the future for seven day services and primary care.


expo-2





Speaking at the Health and Care Innovation Expo 2015 in Manchester, Ros explored the challenges facing GPs in delivering the services they want to provide, what is being done nationally to support them and how we will access GPs services in the future.“We know GPs are under immense pressure.  The level of investment in the NHS has not been matched in terms of investment in primary care. There is variation in quality of care, and despite high levels of satisfaction, we have seen a drop in access.

“But work is underway to respond to these challenges.  We’ve increased funding allocations for primary care, we have workforce initiatives underway, there is £200 million worth of Prime Minister’s Challenge schemes in train and we have just announced a new occupational health service to support GPs.


“Currently GPs are doing things that other professionals can be doing.  It’s about using nurses, pharmacists and other professionals to take the pressure off GPs.


“It’s also about large scale collaboration, but in a way that makes sense to the local population and staff. It’s about extending hours, but while also taking into consideration local demand, which may differ according to demographic or rurality.”


The audience heard from Chris Jones, Clinical Lead, West Wakefield Health and Wellbeing and Jim O’Donnell, Chair, Slough CCG, who gave examples of innovative approaches have been applied in their local areas and how they are working in practice.


Dr Chaand Nagpal of the BMA emphasised the need to change the way we define access to understand that it is about providing the right care at the right time for patients in a range of ways.


Ros Roughton said, “To continue this work there are three key enablers which are essential. Technology is the first, and that means not only making the most of technology, but also using it to ensure we handle data efficiently and safely.


“Workforce is the second, so that we can increase our capacity as well as develop new skill mix models.


“Finally we need proper development support. In the same way that resources have been provided to support hospitals in tackling waiting times, we need to consider the support needed to transform GP access for the future.”


Source NHS England http://www.england.nhs.uk/2015/09/04/gp-access/






GP access a top priority for NHS

Thursday 3 September 2015

NHS can be the home of the Innovation Revolution

The NHS has the opportunity to become the “go-to place for innovations”.


NHS En





That is the view of Sir Bruce Keogh, NHS England’s National Medical Director, who today refuted any suggestion that the health service is slow to embrace or develop innovations, but did concede that ii is often too slow to exploit them.

Sir Bruce was speaking during a panel debate at the Health and Innovation Expo 2015 in Manchester, which explored how innovation can be spread across the NHS.


The NHS Innovation Accelerator programme was launched in January by Simon Stevens and Sir Bruce, and is a partnership between NHS England, the Health Foundation and the Academic Health and Science Networks (AHSNs).


It aims to speed up the adoption of new innovations – both inventions and new ways of working – for the benefit of patients and the wider population by supporting individuals with a high-impact innovation and a willingness to spread their learning through collaboration.


Around 140 innovators applied for the scheme, with the 17 chosen so far announced in July.


Sir Bruce Keogh said: “There’s been a lot of debate about our NHS, but one of the things often levelled at us is why we are so slow to embrace innovations. I don’t accept the argument that we don’t develop innovations, but I do accept that we are often too slow to exploit them. We have an opportunity in our NHS to be the go-to place in innovations.”


To demonstrate the kind of innovation which can have a big impact on health, Francis White, EU General Manager of AliveCor and NIA Fellow, showed the audience a device which fits to the back of a smartphone, turning it into a medical-grade ECG monitor, allowing patients to see whether they are in atrial fibrillation. And he discussed BrushDJ, a product which encourages children to brush their teeth for two minutes in an effort to reduce their need for dental care.


Dr Matt Jameson, Co-Founder of Health Unlocked and NIA Fellow, explained what the programme means to innovators in getting their ideas and inventions into use: “The NIA programme offers us the chance to take a risk that we wouldn’t otherwise take, without it we would have to go to patients direct.”


Dr Mahiben Maruthappu, Co-founder of the NHS Innovation Accelerator, said: “Some parts of the NHS are operating in the Digital Age, but other parts are operating in the Stone Age; those parts need to get real about innovation.”


Dr Liz Mear, CEO of North West Coast AHSN and national co-lead for Patient Safety Collaboratives, outlined the role that AHSNs can play in supporting innovation, saying: “Working with AHSNs can help innovators open doors to the NHS.


“Innovators should also be flexible in how they respond to what NHS organisations and service users actually tell them they want and need from them.”


Sir Bruce, discussing the barriers to innovations being taken up in the NHS added: “In the private sector, when you face financial pressures you refocus, and find out exactly what your customers want but we don’t do that well enough in the NHS. It can also often be tribal when the going gets tough – different organisations and groups fighting for their own interests rather than solving problems together.”


Summing up the session after questions from the audience, Professor Donal O’Donaghue, Medical Director of Greater Manchester AHSN and an NIA Mentor, said: “The key challenge we face is how we expand what we’re doing here from 17 innovators, to 170, to 170,000.


“This programme is just the start of a journey which is fundamentally important for our NHS.”


Source http://www.england.nhs.uk/expo/2015/09/02/innovation/






NHS can be the home of the Innovation Revolution

Wednesday 2 September 2015

Sanofi and Google partner on digital health in diabetes

Aim to develop new patient tools by harnessing data and miniaturised tech







Google headquarters


Sanofi has teamed up with Google’s life sciences team to develop a new range of digital health tools for patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes.


The firms plan to do this by harnessing data and miniaturised technology, in the process moving from ‘episodic, event-driven diabetes care’ towards ‘continuous, value-based care’.


Olivier Brandicourt, Sanofi’s chief executive officer, said: “As a global leader in diabetes care, we have both an obligation and a commitment to provide integrated solutions for people living with diabetes.


“This initiative combines Sanofi’s strength and knowledge in diabetes with Google’s leadership in technology and analytics to create a first-of-its-kind initiative with the potential to transform diabetes care.”


Sanofi, whose Lantus (insulin glargine) was the world’s fifth best-selling drug last year, will tap into Google’s expertise in analytics, miniaturised electronics and low power chip design.


Together they plan to develop new tools that bring together combine data on blood glucose and hemoglobin A1c levels with patient-reported information, medication regimen data and sensor devices.


Andy Conrad, CEO of the life sciences team at Google, said: “With new technologies emerging to provide a more continuous and real-time view of a patient’s health, we can see the promise for more proactive and effective ways to control diabetes.


“Together with Sanofi, we believe diabetes management can be simpler and more convenient, which may help patients achieve an improved quality of life.”


The collaboration will also see the companies partner with Boston’s Joslin Diabetes Center. Its president and CEO John Brooks III said: “Technology, sensors, analytics, and digital solutions will revolutionise how blood sugars are managed, which will deliver improved quality of life, lowering the risk of complications and reducing the costs and barriers associated with diabetes care. Ultimately, I truly hope we’re able to turn the Joslin Diabetes Center into a museum.”


The collaboration is the first major health move from Google since its operations were restructured with the creation of new holding company Alphabet and greater independence handed to its healthcare operations.


It also ramps up Google’s focus on diabetes, following its deal with Novartis for glucose-sensing contact lens and recent agreement with DexCom to develop a new range of continuous glucose-monitoring products.


Source PMLive http://www.pmlive.com/blogs/digital_intelligence/archive/2015/september/sanofi_and_google_partner_on_digital_health_in_diabetes_810702








Sanofi and Google partner on digital health in diabetes