ALCOVE AWARDED SUFFOLK CARE TECHNOLOGY CONTRACT

UK-based technology company Alcove, change management consultancy, Rethink Partners and monitoring service, CIC have been awarded the contract to deliver Suffolk County Council's care technology service over the next three years.

The new Cassius service, which focuses on technology that promotes independence and monitoring assessment for patients, was awarded following a lengthy procurement process. 

Cllr Beccy Hopfensberger, cabinet member for Adult Social Care at SCC, said: “We’re really excited to launch this new service and to offer people in Suffolk a simple, accessible, seamless and flexible approach.

“Our teams have worked hard over the last couple of years to create a vision of how we would like our digital care model to be – setting us aside from other local authorities. As we move away from the traditional analogue approach, we are embracing this opportunity to provide a pioneering and intelligent service that will evolve and adapt alongside societal needs.”

EUROPEAN COMMISSION PROPOSES DIGITAL IDENTITY FOR EUROPEANS

The Commission has proposed a framework for a European Digital Identity, which will enable all EU citizens to prove their identity and share electronic documents.

Through the European Digital Identity wallets, EU citizens, residents and businesses in the EU will have access to online services with their national digital identification, which will be recognised throughout Europe.

Margrethe Vestager, executive vice-president for a Europe Fit for the Digital Age, said: “The European digital identity will enable us to do in any Member State as we do at home without any extra cost and fewer hurdles. Be that renting a flat or opening a bank account outside of our home country. And do this in a way that is secure and transparent. So that we will decide how much information we wish to share about ourselves, with whom and for what purpose. This is a unique opportunity to take us all further into experiencing what it means to live in Europe, and to be European.”

UK MINISTRY OF DEFENCE SELECTS INTERSYSTEMS

US-based data technology provider, InterSystems will provide its technology and support to the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) in its mission to deliver an integrated ecosystem of medical information services to the Defence Medical Services.

Through Programme CORTISONE, the MoD’s Defence Digital organisation will expand the current Medical Information Services (Med IS) system, on behalf of the Defence Medical Services.

The Defence Medical Services is staffed by 12,200 service personnel, plus an additional 2,500 civilian personnel to “Promote, Protect, and Restore” the health of over 135,000 UK Armed Forces Personnel.

The programme will employ the InterSystems HealthShare interoperability platform to normalise, aggregate and de-duplicate data into a longitudinal Unified Care Record for each patient.

The MoD will also use InterSystems IRIS for Health, a data platform specifically engineered to extract value from healthcare data and create and scale breakthrough applications.

TRIBUNE THERAPEUTICS LAUNCHES FOR FIBROTIC DISEASE MEDICINES

Tribune Therapeutics, a Norway-based company founded to exploit a novel, pan-antifibrotic mechanism across a range of indications, has announced its launch with a seed financing led by HealthCap and Novo Holdings.

This follows a period of company creation, with involvement by HealthCap and Novo Seeds, the early-stage investment and company creation team of Novo Holdings.

Based on research from Håvard Attramadal’s lab at Oslo University Hospital, Tribune is developing a drug with a pan-antifibrotic mechanism of action targeting several fibrotic indications including diseases affecting the kidney, lung and liver.

HealthCap and Novo Seeds have worked closely with Inven2 and the scientific founders to develop a business plan to maximise the potential of the company’s technology.

ORANGE AND AXA ASSURANCE ACQUIRE STAKE IN DABADOC

Orange Middle East and Africa and AXA Assurance Maroc have signed an agreement to acquire a majority stake in DabaDoc, the Moroccan health-tech company focused on digitalising access to healthcare in Africa.

Orange and AXA’s investment and network will accelerate DabaDoc’s growth and extend DabaDoc’s services to other regions, in particular Sub-Saharan Africa. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2021.

Following its first investment in DabaDoc in 2018, AXA Assurance Maroc is now consolidating its partnership with the company to accelerate the digitalisation and integration of its customers' healthcare journey. The acquisition will facilitate its policyholders’ interactions with healthcare professionals, notably via DabaDoc’s appointment booking and remote consultation infrastructure and network.

HYLAND TO HELP FRIMLEY HEALTH NHS FT EXPAND EPR

Frimley Health NHS FT has selected OnBase, Hyland’s enterprise information platform, to digitise and manage clinical documents.

The OnBase platform will consolidate existing documents stored in disparate repositories, whilst optimising workflows and performance across the enterprise, which aligns with the Frimley Health strategy to be a leader in health and wellbeing.

OnBase will deliver content to clinicians and staff by integrating with the Trust’s Epic EPR, which will go live in March 2022. Choosing Hyland's platform reinforces the trust’s goal of having all patient information in one accessible interface.

Lucy Barette, EPR programme director at Frimley Health, said: “By implementing OnBase, integrated with our Epic EPR, we will improve patient safety and an all-round better patient experience. Our staff will be able to spend more time caring for our patients as they will have faster access to information through a one patient record, and Hyland has proven experience in helping to deliver this goal.”

UKRI LAUNCHES FUNDING FOR HEALTHY AGEING CHALLENGE

Five projects will share £23 million in funding from the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) healthy ageing challenge, which will aim to improve health disparities in the UK.

The projects are run by big and small businesses, social enterprises and charities, and are designed to ensure that citizens can live healthier and more connected lives as they age and to help narrow the gap between the experiences of the richest and poorest individuals.

The initiative will use technology to address national care inequality at the local level. This comprises a digital platform that can both map and predict care ‘dark patches’ where home care provision is failing. It will also recruit and upskill people in areas of low economic activity and high public service demand so they can create micro-businesses to provide care.