NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, NHS Golden Jubilee National Center for Sustainable Delivery, University of Glasgow, AstraZeneca UK and Lenus Health have partnered to deliver a number of projects including the use of digital technology to improve the health of Scotland’s population.
The companies signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to test new patient pathways and digital technologies to enable earlier treatment and diagnosis, large-scale clinical trials, and gather evidence to assess how effective new pathways are.
The goal is to rapidly scale successful pathways, allowing all patients in the country living with chronic conditions to be enrolled in trials.
One of the projects being considered for national roll-out is a digital patient pathway called Optimizing a Digital Diagnostic Pathway for Heart Failure in the Community (OPERA).
The Opera Path was trialled During the coronavirus pandemicwhereby patients attend a single clinic appointment where they undergo a number of tests, reducing waiting lists for heart failure diagnostic tests from more than 12 months to six weeks.
Julie Brittenden, director of research and innovation at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, said the health board was already “seeing great success in our Covid recovery, with an increasing number of transformative research involving new medicines, devices, digitally enabled technologies and artificial intelligence.” “
“This collaboration adds to the opportunity to undertake high-quality research and innovative projects like OPERA, which will directly impact and improve patient-centered care,” he said.
Following the coronavirus pandemic, NHS Scotland has developed a recovery planThis includes ensuring that digital choices are always available to patients and increasing and accelerating the uptake of digital technology in the NHS.
Lenus Health is the collaboration’s digital partner, whose CEO Paul McGuinness says the project will enable new innovations to be implemented quickly across Scotland.
“Not only will this deal help expand these benefits to scale, but the commitment to the Scottish digital health and artificial intelligence ecosystem will also benefit the local economy by encouraging investment in the technology sector and creating jobs,” he said.