Digital Health’s monthly roundup of contracts and go lives features an innovation agreement between Mid and South Essex NHS FT and Diligram, Cornwall and Isles of Scilly ICB’s launch of the Strata Health Platform and a three-year cybersecurity deal for Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust.

BT launches new AI and digital diagnostic services

BT has launched new AI and digital services in diagnostics to support the NHS in tackling wait times and speeding up diagnosis for patients.

The company is working in partnership with two specialist health technology companies – deepc, which designs operating systems for AI radiology solutions, and AXON Diagnostics, which provides workflow systems for radiology and pathology reporting – to free up doctors’ time by connecting them with new AI tools and opening the benefits of digital diagnosis to more hospitals in a safe and responsible way.   

BT is aiming to help increase patient flow and address the existing backlog with deepc. Its radiology platform can help medical professionals access the clinical value of multiple AI tools quickly and safely via an AI marketplace. 

In addition, BT’s collaboration with AXON will also help the NHS reduce reliance on outsourcing, by empowering clinicians to work more effectively across regional networks. The digital platform enables faster diagnosis and image sharing.

Mid and South Essex signs innovation agreement with Diligram

Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust has signed an agreement with Diligram for its MyStaff app Document Management System (DMS), which will help the trust’s staff to access and govern policies and procedures, leading to improved clinical government and outcomes.

The MyStaff app uses AI to redefine how documents are managed and distributed within the NHS, providing instant access to key clinical documents. As well as providing access for staff to ensure they are aware of new documents or changes to procedures that are relevant to their job role, it also confirms if the documents have been accessed.

The closed-loop solution is now being rolled out to every department within the trust, after initially being used in the maternity units at Mid and South Essex. This allows it to manage a document lifecycle from creation, local approval and ratification through to distribution.

Cornwall and Isles of Scilly ICB launch Strata Health Platform

Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Integrated Care Board (ICB) has launched Strata Health’s referral platform, a unified electronic system to help streamline patient referrals across the primary, secondary, community and social services sectors within the Integrated Care System (ICS).

The Strata Health PathWays system delivers a network of more than 250 referring locations and a fully operational clinical portal. It enables the smooth transfer of patients across three Integrated Transfer of Care (ITOC) Hubs and 15 primary clinical pathways covering a range of services including community nursing, specialist services, care home support and brokerage services.

Going live on 4 July 2023, the platform received 462 referrals on day one, with a further 472 referrals on day two.

Oto and Lindus Health launch remote digital trial for tinnitus

Digital health company Oto is working with clinical trial start-up Lindus Health to launch a fully remote, digital trial that aims to increase patients’ access to tinnitus therapy.

The trial will see 198 adult patients across the UK use Oto’s smartphone tinnitus management programme and assess it against therapist-delivered cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for achieving an improvement in self-reported tinnitus severity.

If Oto’s digital offering is proven to be as effective as standard one-to-one therapy, it will open the door for a patient-focused, cost-effective treatments for tinnitus sufferers.

Lindus Health will be delivering the trial end-to-end, including protocol draft, data collection and management, recruitment and trial monitoring. According to the company, it can run clinical trials three times faster than the old industry standard, helping ensure ground-breaking new treatments are available to patients more quickly.

Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust sign 3-year deal with Cylera

Cylera, a leader in healthcare IoT intelligence and security, has signed a new three-year agreement with Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust, one of the largest hospital trusts in North Kent.

The agreement comes as the NHS remains a key target for malicious activity from cybercriminals around the world focused on national infrastructure systems and on disrupting essential services. Like many healthcare settings across the country that are adopting technology to help improve and streamline services to patients, the trust has more than doubled its connected devices over the last three to four years, up from 5,000 to the current 11,000.   

Cylera’s patented technologies enable IT teams to view, profile, manage, and risk assess in real-time their entire cybersecurity landscape and connected environment, including medical devices, other connected IoT devices, and any vulnerabilities, in one centralised dashboard. Users can get a true, high-fidelity asset inventory of all devices connected to the network.