Guy’s Cancer Care, one of the leading cancer treatment and research centres in the UK, has entered into a collaboration with Careology, providers of a digital cancer care platform.
The first-of-its-kind collaboration will see the two organisations co-develop innovative new capabilities within Careology’s digital platform to help address major challenges in cancer care and improve outcomes and experiences for cancer patients.
The five-year agreement will advance innovation in digital cancer care that helps to build capacity, drive efficiencies, and improve the patient experience at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.
The new technology will also be available to the NHS nationwide and healthcare providers globally.
Dr Majid Kazmi, director of innovation for cancer and surgery and deputy medical director at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, said: “I have been a passionate advocate for the adoption of patient-centred, user-friendly digital technology to support cancer services.
“Digital technology has the potential to help patients and carers to be better informed and supported, as well as giving healthcare workers the relevant information that allows them to provide a more-responsive service and frees up time to care.
“We have been impressed with the approach taken by Careology and the strides it has already made to build an innovative and accessible solution and we are excited to be working together to build the world’s leading digital cancer care platform.”
Digital technology has the potential to help patients and carers to be better informed and supported, as well as giving healthcare workers the relevant information that allows them to provide a more-responsive service and frees up time to care
Through Careology’s technology, the trust can further support patients and their families by giving them access to crucial tools via its app and online, which they can use at home while being seamlessly connected to their care team.
Careology’s digital cancer care platform helps healthcare professionals to manage treatment for people living with cancer by providing remote insights and data which have never been available before.
The collaboration will focus on enhancing and extending tools which will digitalise elements of the cancer pathway; improving early visibility of issues, reducing clinical administration, driving greater operational efficiencies, and improving patient safety.
Careology allows patients to keep information about their treatment in one place, such as logging symptoms and side effects, managing their medicines, and recording any issues.
This gives clinicians a real-time view of how patients are reacting to treatment between appointments, enabling them to care for patients more pro-actively and with better insight.
Additionally, through Careology’s partnership with Macmillan Cancer Support, patients at the trust will be able to access trusted and personalised advice within the app to enable them to learn more about their condition and treatment.
Our collaboration with the trust will allow us to accelerate the development and uptake of this vital new category with a world-class partner to help transform traditional cancer care through scalable technology so more people receive the best possible care
The trust will initially use the Careology platform with a particular cancer speciality to evaluate the impact of this technology including groups of cancer patients traditionally excluded from digital technology.
Paul Landau, founder and chief executive of Careology, said: “There’s a huge opportunity for digital to transform the delivery of traditional cancer care and we are incredibly excited about this collaboration as we pave the way for how digital is adopted in the sector.
“We are creating important technology that provides enhanced support for the patient as well as improved clinical insight, data and operational enhancements.
“Our collaboration with the trust will allow us to accelerate the development and uptake of this vital new category with a world-class partner to help transform traditional cancer care through scalable technology so more people receive the best possible care.”
Dr Kazmi is also joining Careology’s board on behalf of Guy’s and St Thomas’ to ensure the two organisations have greater collaboration and insight.