Careology and Nuffield Health, the UK’s largest healthcare charity, operating 37 hospitals and 114 fitness and wellbeing centres across the UK, have partnered in a pilot to provide patients undergoing cancer treatment with support through the use of digital cancer care technology.
By using the Careology app, up to 50 patients undergoing cancer treatment at Nuffield Health Derby Hospital will be connected and in control of monitoring their health including symptoms, vital signs and wellbeing measures. The initial deployment of the app started on 14 February. The ‘virtual ward’ view in Careology ProfessionalTM enables nurses, pharmacists and clinicians to provide a more personalised and connected patient experience.
Digital cancer care is playing an increasingly important role in better supporting people during and after their treatment. Hospitals and cancer care teams receive real-time insights through patient reported data and clinical questionnaires, such as holistic needs assessments. This supports improving health outcomes.
Paul Landau, Founder and CEO comments: “Nuffield Health is a leading independent health and wellbeing provider with an excellent reputation for providing an outstanding patient experience. This mirrors our approach at Careology, putting the patient at the centre of our technology. We have been incredibly impressed by Nuffield Health’s proactive approach and its commitment to moving into the new digital age in healthcare. We are looking forward to closely collaborating as we deliver on our mission to create more ‘Up Days’ for everyone living and dealing with cancer.”
Elisa Mills, Interim Quality Lead for Cancer Services at Nuffield Health, said: “Receiving a cancer diagnosis can be an incredibly daunting and worrying experience for anyone. Our approach at Nuffield Health is to go out of our way to ensure patients feel as comfortable as possible during, and after, their treatment. That’s why our pilot at Nuffield Health Derby Hospital and partnership with Careology is so exciting. Using digital cancer care to better support our patients whilst they are at home, paired with comprehensive remote monitoring from our specialist cancer teams, will significantly enhance how we communicate with patients and enable us to personalise their experience. We believe this has the potential to provide a new standard of patient support in cancer care.”
David Richardson, Hospital Director at Nuffield Health Derby Hospital said: “We are committed to providing our patients with the latest technologies and we are excited to see how the piloting of this technology and partnership with Careology progresses. People undergoing cancer treatment have many different experiences and we hope using this Careology app will provide them with extra support and knowledge so they can understand their treatment pathway.”
Steve Winton, Head of Digital Services at Nuffield Health adds: “At Nuffield Health we understand the important role digital technology plays in healthcare. Providing greater visibility through ‘virtual wards’ supports how complex conditions, like cancer, are treated most effectively. We believe the digital cancer care technology Careology provides is truly best in class and will help us to better support our patients, clinical colleagues and hospitals.”
About Careology
Careology is an award-winning health tech platform that helps people living and dealing with cancer to navigate their treatment, using mobile technology to connect them with their clinicians, caregivers and family. It also allows healthcare professionals and supporting services to monitor their patients in real-time, making early interventions more likely and saving lives in the process.
Careology connects to wearable devices, such as smartwatches allowing it to easily track changes in the person’s physical condition in real-time. It also helps them to journal their thoughts and feelings, track side effects, medication and appointments. For clinicians, Careology takes information from their patients and presents it in a ‘virtual ward’, providing a rich, holistic overview of all those in their care.
Careology recently announced their strategic partnership with Macmillan Cancer Support. Working together to offer best in class digital support to the 3 million people living with cancer in the UK, whilst supporting nursing teams and building clinical capacity for hospitals.
About Nuffield Health
Nuffield Health is the UK’s largest healthcare charity. For the last 60 years, Nuffield Health’s experts have been working together to make the nation fitter, healthier, happier and stronger, all for the public benefit. We do this through outstanding day-to-day services in our family of 37 award-winning hospitals, 114 fitness and wellbeing centres, healthcare clinics, and over 150 workplace wellbeing services, and through our flagship programmes to support communities by widening access. 94% of Nuffield Health’s hospitals are rated as Good or Outstanding by national regulators.
What makes us unique is the breadth of our expertise to provide connected care spanning from personal training and health assessments to supporting people on their fitness journeys, helping patients recover with physiotherapy or emotional wellbeing services, or providing hospital treatments for illness and serious conditions such as joint surgery or cancer.
Additionally, what also makes us stand out is our commitment to our community flagship programmes to widen access, including our free community programmes such as our Joint Pain programme and our specialist 12-week COVID-19 recovery programme.
