Your morning summary of digital health news, information and events to know if you want to be βin the knowβ.
π News
π©Έ Tens of thousands of children and adults living with type 1 diabetes in England are set to receive an 'artificial pancreas' as part of a world-first initiative underway. deployed by the NHS. This revolutionary device continuously monitors a person's blood sugar levels and then automatically adjusts the amount of insulin delivered to them via a pump. Local NHS systems will begin today to identify eligible people living with type 1 diabetes who health chiefs believe could benefit from the hybrid closed-loop system β sometimes called an artificial pancreas. There are currently 269,095 people living in England with type 1 diabetes. Thanks to technology, some people with type 1 diabetes will no longer need to inject insulin but will rely on technology to receive this medicine that saves their lives.
π Practical Plus Group (PPG), loyal customer of MAXIMS OF THE SMI, began his digital transformation journey with the company in 2006 by successfully implementing the MAXIMS Electronic Patient Record (EPR) solution across multiple sites. The South West Processing Center sites were among the first sites to launch MAXIMS EPR. Fast forward to June 2023, with five sites continuing to run on a competitor's software, PPG made the strategic decision to migrate these remaining sites to MAXIMS EPR, meaning all PPG hospitals and diagnostic centers used MAXIMS EPR. The synchronized commissioning project across these five sites simultaneously was a massive undertaking and marked a remarkable achievement for PPG, given the collaborative efforts and meticulous planning invested in the migration process. By 2024, all PPG sites will be upgraded to the latest version of MAXIMS EPR, bringing many benefits. Standardization of the latest version of the solution ensures consistency of features, functionalities and security protocols, streamlining maintenance and support processes.
π€° Nathan Blue, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine at the University of Utah, is design an AI-based tool which will scour massive databases of past pregnancy outcomes to find the hidden patterns of warning signs β from underlying genetic risk factors to environmental factors and clinical measures β that mark the difference between an at-risk pregnancy and a relatively safe pregnancy. The tool could then use these models to estimate the risk of stillbirth for future pregnancies. When a new patient arrives at the clinic with a smaller-than-expected fetus, their doctor could enter their unique risk factors into the tool, and it would calculate a personalized estimate of their stillbirth risk.
π² Digital health office Archangel recently launched its Responder app aimed at health, housing and welfare organizations. The app, unveiled at the ITEC 2024 conference, allows responders to manage individual and property alarms such as SOS, fall detection and medication compliance as well as smoke, leak and mold detection in a property. Alarm notifications can be configured to be broadcast or cascaded depending on the organizations needs.
π© An AI tool tested by the NHS managed to identify tiny signs of breast cancer in 11 women, which had gone undetected by human doctors. The tool, called Mia, was tested alongside NHS clinicians and analyzed mammograms from more than 10,000 women. Most of them did not have cancer, but managed to report everyone with symptoms, as well as 11 others who doctors did not identify. Because they work instantly, tools like Mia also have the potential to reduce the wait time for results from 14 days to three, says its developer Kheiron.
βDid you know?
Research conducted by experts from The Devonshire Clinic reveals that searches for cancer symptoms increased by 82% the day Kate Middleton's diagnosis was announced. Searches remained 22% higher than average a week later.
π What we read
Medical news β The role of AI in detecting pathogens and protecting against epidemics by Antonia Du Bois, BSc Molecular Biology and Genetics, MSc Molecular Genetics
π¨ This week's events
April 3-4, London Business School β LBS Healthcare Conference 2024