Welcome to the first edition of our morning briefing of news, information and events for the digital health community. The briefing will be published every weekday morning.
Your morning summary of digital health news, information and events to know about if you want to be “in the know”.
👇 News round
🧑⚕️ A partnership between Medicines Discovery Catapult (MDC), the Medical Research Council (MRC) and Innovate UK is set to deliver scientific breakthroughs with the launch of the UK’s first-of-its-kind national total-body positron emission tomography (PET) imaging platform for drug discovery.
🧑💻 Imprivata, the digital identity company for life- and mission-critical industries, today announced that Imprivata Identity Governance now supports the provisioning of NHSmail accounts in the NHS England shared central tenant to reduce manual and repetitive workloads when on- and off-boarding staff.
💊 The Community Pharmacy System Innovation Fund (CPSIF), set up to support the delivery of an EPS in Wales, has made three further grant awards to digital community pharmacy system suppliers Egton Medical Information Services (EMIS), Camascope and Clanwilliam, bringing the total number of organisations who have benefitted to five.
🧫 Healthcare Innovation Consortium (HIC) – a UK-based digital health and social care agency – is launching a new programme aimed at combating antimicrobial resistance (AMR) at Global Health 2023 in Saudi Arabia.
🧴2San has launched an interactive, easy-to-follow and visual app to act as a support guide for consumers using 2San tests to make at home testing even more accurate, effective and efficient. The app, which is available to download via iOS and android, will allow the user to find key information quickly and easily, including: what biomarkers the tests can detect; certification information; what the sample specimen is; and how to bes understand and interpret t result.
🐈⬛ A four-hour system interruption in September at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Kansas City, Missouri has been attributed to a cat jumping on a technician’s keyboard.
❓ Did you know that?
😟 Bupa’s Wellbeing Index shows that 50% of people would rather self-diagnose, than see a doctor, even though 22% rated their mental health as poor. Bupa’s UK online service partners with digital mental health service JAAQ – Just Ask A Question. The platform uses AI to provide a safe space where users can search for answers to questions related to mental health that have been answered by experts on the platform, including Bupa doctors, and others who have experienced mental health problems.
📖 What we’re reading
NHS England has published ‘Inclusive digital healthcare: a framework for NHS action on digital inclusion’, designed to help services in designing and implementing inclusive digital approaches and technologies which align appropriately with non-digital services and support. Five domains are identified as requiring action: access to devices and data; accessibility and ease of using technology; skills and capability; beliefs and trust; and leadership and partnerships.
🚨 This week’s events
October 11-12, the King’s Fund is hosting its annual Digital Health and Care Congress.
October 11-12 at the Royal College of Physicians, London. Economist Impact is holding its annual Future of Healthcare Europe conference.
October 11 – Orion UK & Ireland Customer Conference.