In this three-part feature series, here in part two we cover how healthcare providers and suppliers have responded to support the coronavirus pandemic.
Chris McCann, CEO and co-founder of Current Health said to Leading Healthcare
“As health systems look for solutions to try to manage the influx of patients and their resources during the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, Current Health has seen a significant increase in hospital and health systems interested in investing in the company’s remote patient monitoring solution.”
“The platform can help to keep immunocompromised patients and COVID-19 patients away from the hospital and clinics – freeing up beds and staff to focus on more critical patients.”
“The wearable remotely monitors patients’ respiratory rate, oxygen levels, pulse, temperature and their movement, which are critical vitals when monitoring patients with respiratory diseases.”
Supporting Care Homes with health tech
VCare Systems Ltd, a London based Health Care Technology company provides a software platform to numerous care homes and pharmacies helping them manage medication for their residents.
It allows care homes to record vitals of care home residents who are high risk of COVID-19.
Care workers can record important vitals like temperature, SPO2, SPCO2 and cough symptoms, feeding into a central dashboard.
The platform can then communicate anonymised population health data to key stakeholders and decisionmakers.
Sidqam offers free video conferencing to NHS
Sidqam is offering its video conferencing and maternity record tool for free.
The company said “We want pregnant women and new mothers to be able to be cared for without exposing them and their little ones to increased chances of catching the virus.”
Dr Julian steps up recruitment to provide more patient appointments
“Being one of the few online mental health therapy providers providing NHS services to patients through our platform via video audio and instant message appointments we really had to step up our recruitment to manage huge increase in demand with patients not able to attend face to face sessions.”
“We have managed to upscale our capacity by 300% in the last few weeks providing many more appointments for patients.”
“We also wanted to help NHS providers to have put on free online training sessions for staff not used to providing mental health therapy online.”
“Given the crisis we also wanted to help frontline NHS staff so have set up a NHS staff support portal with volunteer therapists willing to give some free time so that NHS staff can book in with them and get mental health psychotherapy support free of charge when it suits them from home and from their personal devices.”
Free telehealth solution by T-Pro
T-Pro are offering a FREE Telehealth solution to acute hospitals to help provide continuity of care for patients during the COVID-19 crisis.
Healthera launches ‘delivery partner programme’
“Prior to the epidemic we have already brought over 1000 pharmacies online where they are accessible via the NHS-accredited Healthera app.”
“With most people self-isolating during the lockdown, there is a greater demand than ever of getting essential medicines delivered to patient’s homes, especially for the elderly and vulnerable.”
“We have responded quickly and launched our Delivery Partner programme, where we connect the patients who need their medicine delivered, to a local pharmacy within our network, who can guarantee to fulfil their order and have it delivered by a driver within a certain region.”
3DGBIRE produces PPE through 3D printing
Daniel Abram, General Manager, 3DGBIRE says “As the pandemic started to cause problems with existing supply chains for PPE and medical devices it became apparent that additive manufacturing was a great solution.”
“3DGBIRE quickly turned our R&D centre into a small 3D printing production farm and started to produce PPE for our local health care networks.”
“Sharing design and production information is a simple process for additive manufacture and that has allowed us to scale production with a network of print farms supported entirely by our customer base.”
“The support from manufacturers, customers and staff has helped us and the wider industry to focus on where it can have an impact and we continue to work with government, healthcare and industrial organisations in developing the production of medical devices.”
MEG Support Tools
MEG is supporting hospital staff to access updated crisis-response guidance, tools and content at the point of care.
Founder and CEO, Kerrill Thornhill, said “Hospitals are using our ‘Notifications’ feature to immediately communicate any new PPE or public health guidance, infection outbreaks, ward closures, SOPs, or rota changes – ensuring it’s sent directly to the relevant frontline staff.”
My mhealth develops Covid-19 virtual ward application
“In the last few days we have developed a virtual COVID-19 ward app to enable clinicians to manage and monitor patients with a diagnosis or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19.”
“These patients will feed back twice a day oxygen saturations and pulse rate from a pulse oximeter purchased for the patient as well some standard questions around cough, breathless and wellness.”
“The inputs are fed into an algorithm that assists both patients and clinicians to stratify risk. Clinicians via the virtual ward can filter patients via these variables to manage these patients remotely and identify those that may need an intervention.”
Medapp’s Carnalife system allows for home diagnosis and monitoring
“Our CarnaLife System enables patients with heart rhythm abnormalities (cardiac arrhythmias) to be diagnosed and monitored at home thus reducing pressure on often overwhelmed and inefficient traditional brick and mortar healthcare providers.”
It is a device agnostic platform capable of gathering and storing large amounts of data. Its data analytics module is supported by artificial intelligence algorithms for faster clinical decision making.
“And our CarnaLife Holo platform is a 3D imaging diagnostic software that enhances the visualization capabilities of the traditional imaging equipment such as CT, MRI or Echo.”
“Enhanced imaging is delivered in 3D using Microsoft Hololens. Both of these solutions have been adopted during the current pandemic.”
Dr Foster maps spread of Covid-19
Jason Harries, managing director, Dr Foster said: “We are applying our experience in population health analytics to help predict and map the spread of COVID-19 across the UK.”
“Our analysts are working to identify the areas of the population most vulnerable to hospital admission from the virus, which is helping local health systems plan demand and capacity to direct resources where they will be most effective and illustrating where adhering to isolation guidelines is most critical.”
“For example, we have created heatmaps showing risk hotspots and detailed analysis of growth in cases by unitary local authority.”
“These tools will also help local health systems plan for care delivery outside of COVID, especially as we come out of the crisis. Data will be an important ally in fighting this virus and reducing its impact.”
Educational webinars launched by Medesk on Covid-19 pandemic
Medesk is a medical practice management platform. Business Development Manager Michael May said “Our team began working remotely a long time ago so we understand how challenging the transition can be, especially in healthcare where people are used to working face to face. We strive to pass on all we have learned alongside our existing tools and instruments.”
“In the face of the current situation, we decided to put together some educational materials including how-to articles and webinars to help our clients;
“For example, on April 7th we held a webinar focused on new patient acquisition and keeping existing patients engaged with private clinics. This looked at online booking and other simple yet highly effective digital tools.”
MJog has developed new software suite on Covid-19
The company has developed new resources to help increase patient awareness and engagement of the latest COVID-19 information and support services that are available.
It includes video guides on how to optimise MJog for less work and better communication, plus thought leadership on saving the NHS money through shorter SMS messages.
“There’s also new features for all MJog users coming out soon, including improvements to our Keyword Responder, an internal communications tool, enhanced filtering by appointment type, and video capabilities using our approved partners too.”
