- The Health Innovation Manchester Momentum Fund was established to support the introduction and adoption of needs-led, evidence-based innovations into the healthcare system within Greater Manchester
- Projects applied for up to £75,000 to support the development of their healthcare innovations
- Four solutions addressing priority areas for the COVID-19 pandemic response have received funding to accelerate their innovations
An Artificial Intelligence (AI) innovation supporting diabetes management, and a clinical decision-making platform to help with earlier discharges from emergency departments, were among four winners set to receive a share of a £200,000 moneypot to improve health and care in Greater Manchester.
The Momentum Fund was established to support the introduction and adoption of needs-led, evidence-based innovations into the healthcare system within Greater Manchester.
This year, the fund sought innovations focused on two themes – urgent and emergency care and cardiovascular disease, diabetes, nutrition or obesity.
And companies could apply for up to £75,000 to help accelerate their innovations.
The four projects to receive funding will all support the response to COVID-19 by supporting people with long-term conditions, matching clinicians to patient need, reducing readmissions to hospital, and optimising patient pathways and improving efficiency in emergency care.
We began the process before the current COVID-19 pandemic began, but we have been impressed by how these innovative digital tools will be able to support the response to the crisis by keeping people healthy at home to reduce hospital admissions or improving care pathways within emergency care
Health Innovation Manchester, the organisation responsible for accelerating proven innovation into Greater Manchester’s health and social care services, selected the winners with the help of a panel of representatives including patients and partners.
Through the fund, Health Innovation Manchester aims to improve the health of citizens and promote economic development and wealth creation through the growth of local businesses and jobs.
Richard Deed, associate director for industry at Health Innovation Manchester, said: “This year we received more high-quality applications than ever before for our Momentum funding call.
“We began the process before the current COVID-19 pandemic began, but we have been impressed by how these innovative digital tools will be able to support the response to the crisis by keeping people healthy at home to reduce hospital admissions or improving care pathways within emergency care.
“And we look forward to working with them during this challenging period to support the system, improve the health and wellbeing of our citizens, and boost the local economy.”
The winners are:
Cambio CDS T-MACS
Cambio CDS was awarded £50,000 to develop and pilot an online app platform for Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust’s Troponin-only Manchester Acute Coronary Syndrome (T-MACS) system to enable clinicians to calculate the risk, review a recommended course of action, and save data for future related research.
Chest pain is one of the most-common reasons for hospital admission for patients presenting at the emergency department, but many of these admissions could be safely avoided with improved diagnostic technology to rapidly rule out acute coronary syndromes (ACS) such as a heart attack.
Several clinical studies and real-world evaluations show that the T-MACS decision aid accurately identifies those at low risk of heart attack, allowing for more patients to be discharged early.
The platform would enable hospitals across the world to rapidly adopt efficient clinical pathways to care for patients with chest pain, optimising patient care and reducing unnecessary use of precious healthcare resources
Professor Richard Body, a consultant in emergency medicine and honorary lecturer in cardiovascular medicine at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, said: “This collaboration with Cambio CDS is crucial to ensure that our current endeavours remain fully compliant with changing regulations and to make the project scalable.
“The platform provided by Cambio CDS would enable hospitals across the world to rapidly adopt efficient clinical pathways to care for patients with chest pain, optimising patient care and reducing unnecessary use of precious healthcare resources.”
Dr Rong Chen, chief executive of Cambio CDS, added: “We are very pleased to have this opportunity to continue working with the NHS.
“Professor Body’s T-MACS solution is a wonderful application that has real impact for patient care and reducing unnecessary hospital admissions and we look forward to continuing working with him and his team to ensure that T-MACS is seamlessly embedded in the hospital system workflow with our EHR independent Clinical Decision Support (CDS) Solution.”
Doc Abode
Doc Abode is a workforce deployment solution that enables healthcare providers to expand additional workforce capacity and improve operational resilience and efficiency by allocating work to healthcare professionals at an individual patient level in real-time, based on availability, proximity and expertise.
The platform can support employed, bank staff, locums and the self employed and can be used to deploy any other workforce such as social prescribers, phlebotomists, and healthcare assistants.
It enables cross-organisational working by sharing a geographically-dispersed clinical workforce centred around the real-time needs and requirements of NHS patients.
The solution provides healthcare professionals with a secure app installed on their phones. They can ‘push’ home visit and telephone/video triage requests to them directly and they are informed of the travel time to the patient, whether the patient is their own registered patient, and whether it is a language or specialism match.
If the job request is accepted, healthcare professionals are securely provided with further information about the patient so they can view and record the consultation in the electronic patient record (EPR).
The £50,000 funding will be used to demonstrate the impact at scale across a wider Greater Manchester footprint.
Dr Taz Aldawoud, Doc Abode chief executive, said: “We’re delighted to be a beneficiary of The Momentum Fund.
“From our early-stage rollouts, we have witnessed first hand that this transformational way of working motivates clinicians to work flexibly and in addition to their usual shifts.
“We have demonstrated the impact that this is already having on providers’ home visiting services and, more recently, with secure telephony and video consultations, and the potential it has to deliver system-wide benefits.
“This funding enables us to further develop our data-driven approach, building on our evidence-based model in support of rollout to other NHS providers.”
A grant of £50,000 will help to develop the Doc Abode workforce deployment solution
Gendius diabetes AI development
Gendius has developed the Intellin app, which uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to calculate an individual’s risk of developing complications from their diabetes based on their clinical history.
The platform then provides clinically-validated hints and tips to empower and educate the individual on how to manage these risks and reduce their risk of developing diabetes-related complications.
The £50,000 funding will be used to analyse consented patient data across 250 GPs and 1,000-plus patients to help improve the app’s existing algorithms.
Rory Cameron, chief executive of Gendius, said: “Winning this grant will enable us to better understand how metabolic markers change over a 10-year period in people with diabetes.
“With this data we will develop improved algorithms in our Intellin platform that will enable better understanding of how resources can be allocated to support the complications of diabetes.
“This is a game changer and a whole new way of looking at diabetes.”
With this data we will develop improved algorithms in our Intellin platform that will enable better understanding of how resources can be allocated to support the complications of diabetes. This is a game changer and a whole new way of looking at diabetes
Howz for Health
Howz for Health has developed a smart home system kit designed for older people which can detect changes in daily routines, signalling a change in an individual's health.
Family and staff can view the information and receive alerts of differences and deviations from the established routine and can intervene at an earlier stage.
The £50,000 funding will be used to evaluate the kit with 50 patients who have two or more conditions, live independently, and have recently been discharged from hospital or identified as at high risk of admission.
The system aims to reduce re-admissions and relieve pressures on the urgent care systems.
Two further successful projects in this year’s Momentum fund have been temporarily paused during COVID-19 to be revisited at a later date.