Australian health data firm, Beamtree, has landed its first NHS contracts with four hospital trusts in England.

Milton Keynes University Hospitals, Lancashire Teaching Hospitals, Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust, and University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire (UHCW) will implement Beamtree’s proprietary RippleDown decision support technology to help drive improvements in patient care.

The NHS trusts are Beamtree’s first international clients in hospital-based care. It is also the first time the firm’s coding and analytic services have been contracted in England. 

Beamtree is building a strategic pipeline of international partners to implement its services in Europe, the Middle East, US and Asia. 

WHY IT MATTERS

These contracts represent a major strategic milestone in confirming the international opportunity for export of Beamtree’s technologies. The combined annual revenue of these partnerships is around £300,000 and the first phase agreements are expected to lead to multi-year engagements. 

Beamtree says that although the estimated revenue is not financially material, the partnerships are strategically important to the company.

THE LARGER CONTEXT

Beamtree became one of Australia’s largest health and analytics decision support platforms last year after its acquisition of health and human data analytics firm Potential (x) and healthcare analytics firm Ainsoff.

The firm formally changed its name from Pacific Knowledge Systems Holdings in August 2021,  following shareholders' approval, which is said reflected its mission to use data to "illuminate pathways to better healthcare outcomes".

ON THE RECORD

Milton Keynes CEO Joe Harrison said: “Our trust is determined to provide the best possible services to our population – and that starts with making sure we use the best possible data to inform both our clinical decision making and our ongoing patient care. This partnership is testament to our commitment to patient safety, transparency and the smart allocation of resources to ensure our people receive the quality of care they deserve.”

Prof Andy Hardy, CEO of UHCW, said: “We’re excited to explore how automation can support our pathology staff and so free up resources to focus on ever better quality of patient care.”

Kevin McGee, CEO at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals, said: “We welcome the opportunity to test and learn from tools that can help improve patient safety and deliver better care to the population of Lancashire and South Cumbria.”

Beamtree CEO Tim Kelsey said: “It is a great privilege to serve these leading NHS providers to support ‘Learning Health Systems’ using our products to tackle medical errors, reduce hospital acquired complications, address health access inequalities and improve efficiency.

“We believe the deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning tools can make a positive impact on critical factors, such as length of patient stay in hospital and the risk of deterioration. We welcome the opportunity to work with these NHS trusts and look forward to announcing similar partnerships with other international pathfinders in due course.”