Global technology services provider companies NTT and Cisco has partnered with Siriraj Hospital, Thailand’s biggest public hospital to use telemedicine to enable rapid treatment for stroke patients.

Known as the Siriraj Mobile Stroke Unit, this special ambulance connects the first responders in the ambulance to the experts at the hospital. This allows doctors to provide immediate attention, medical treatment, and diagnosis to patients during their transfer to the hospital. In service since 2018, the Siriraj Mobile Stroke Unit has helped 380 stroke patients receive emergency medical treatment in Thailand so far.

Equipped with Medical Image Transfer with a high-speed multicellular router and essential medical equipment such as CT scanner, the Mobile Stroke Unit facilitates the medical team to scan the patient’s brain and send high-resolution images from the ambulance to the doctors for rapid diagnosis.

Cisco Telepresence video conferencing system was integrated to enable doctors to fully assess the patient’s condition and provide remote advice to the first responders allowing them to prepare the best treatment possible. Cisco WebEx on the other hand, facilitates the mobile and hospital-based teams to collaborate and work seamlessly for the optimal outcome.

Last December, Huawei (Thailand) and Faculty of Medicine, Siriraj Hospital, under Mahidol University, signed the 5G Powered Smart Hospital Enabled with Cloud and AI Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish a smart platform that will enhance innovative medical services, Healthcare IT News reported. Siriraj Hospital is also the first hospital in Southeast Asia to deploy two NVIDIA DGX A100 systems for medical research and clinical applications.

Dr Prasit Watanapa, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Siriraj Hospital Mahidol University said, “Siriraj Mobile Stroke Unit demonstrates how technology is transforming healthcare. With a more stable and reliable communication system, our doctors can now have quicker access to accurate information such as brain scan images to make quality diagnosis and improve patient treatment.”

“NTT believes in using technology for good and we are honored to help Siriraj Hospital provide better care to patients. We understand the importance of timely treatments in stroke patients, which can sometimes be difficult with Bangkok’s frequent traffic congestions. We have already installed these technologies in the first mobile stroke unit and are set to extend Siriraj Hospital’s fleet of mobile stroke units by five this year,” said Sutas Kongdumrongkiat, CEO of NTT Ltd. in Thailand.

Taveewat Chantaraseno Country Manager (interim), Thailand and Indochina Cisco Systems (Thailand) added, “We are proud to have a joint partnership with NTT which makes the best use of remote telemedicine technology to provide first-class care for the Siriraj Mobile Stroke Unit. Through this partnership, we will offer a new way to help stroke patients receive emergency medical care when time is of the essence for their recovery. This will help give patients a greater opportunity to recover and return to their normal lives.”

The throng of multinational tech, comms, consulting and insurance companies will pool their resources – including their technologies, expertise and data – and work with selected startups to create a healthcare ‘ecosystem’ made up of digital solutions that improve the quality, security, accessibility and productivity of healthcare in France.

Announced by French President Emmanuel Macron in late January, the initiative aims to strengthen the international positioning of France in digital healthcare. The founding partners are planning an initial investment of €24 million for the new joint venture, which will be operational from June 2021 for the virtual platform and December 2021 for the physical platform.

New venture to involve a multitude of public and private players

Among the companies to be involved in the creation of the healthcare ecosystem, in addition to the four founding companies (Sanofi, Capgemini, Generali and Orange), are around a hundred French and European startups, players in the healthcare, technology and insurance sectors, public and private hospitals, patient associations, regulators, schools and universities.

“The strength of this alliance is based on the fact that the entire ecosystem will simultaneously focus on the same commitment, which will limit the dispersion of energy and increase the chances of success and creation of value for patients and the entire sector,” a press release reads.

Generali customers to benefit from the new ecosystem

“Through this alliance, our motivation as an insurer and assistance provider is to participate in an innovative and powerful ecosystem that will help model the healthcare solutions of the future and to work on new technologies and innovative services for patients. The insurance business works on the basis of statistics drawn from a large volume of anonymised data reaching back over several decades. This can be made available to startups to fuel their search for solutions,” explained Jean-Laurent Granier, CEO of Generali France and Chairman of Europ Assistance. “As an historical player in the healthcare market, nationally and internationally, Generali wishes to actively contribute to the creation and running of this unique ecosystem in France and Europe, in collaboration with other leading international companies in their sector.”

Digital health solutions were also identified as being key to improving patient care abilities, as well as reducing healthcare costs, over in Asia and the Middle East.

Anthem Inc, one of the world’s largest healthcare solutions company, is venturing into healthcare innovation through its Anthem Digital Incubator platform.

Earlier this month, Anthem’s Staff Vice President of Digital Care Delivery Kate Merton described the purpose behind the incubator: “This initiative matches Anthem’s knowledge, experiences and resources with innovative and nimble entrepreneurs who share the desire to deliver personalized, proactive and predictive healthcare solutions that help improve a person’s health and wellbeing.”

Merton stated that “This new initiative invites entrepreneurs and recently formed companies into the program and supports these organizations with the development and deployment of their novel solutions for healthcare consumers. Companies that are invited to participate in the program receive: Funding opportunities…Access to Anthem’s Digital Data Sandbox… Mentoring… [and] Path to Market” support.

Anthem is well suited to provide the resources and expertise for innovation. In terms of market share alone, “Anthem serves more than 107 million people, including more than 43 million within its family of health plans.”

Overall, the company’s goal is to promote early entrepreneurs in tackling healthcare’s toughest problems. In a world that has been quickly jolted with the shock of a global pandemic, increased cost pressures, and varying patient-care outcomes in the last decade, more innovation is definitely required.

Carestream Health earned 70 new patents in medical imaging in 2020 for advances in digital radiography, mobile imaging X-ray systems and other healthcare technology areas. Twenty-seven of the patents were awarded by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office; an additional 43 patents were received in European and Asian countries.

“Carestream’s 2020 patents are 70 more proof points of our ability to develop pioneering digital imaging technologies that meet the evolving medical imaging needs of our customers worldwide,” said Eugene Shkurko, Intellectual Property Counsel at Carestream. “Our research and development team continually pursues innovations that have the potential to improve the delivery of care to benefit both patients and providers.”

Patents earned by Carestream’s scientists and engineers in 2020 include:

• Technology advances in Carestream’s growing portfolio of radiology imaging detectors with processing capabilities to calibrate and correct X-ray images in the detector before transmission
• 3-D image reconstruction methods
• New medical image capture technologies related to long-length imaging using a single X-ray exposure for full spinal and extremity imaging; and
• Mobile X-ray cart technology that enables bedside imaging in selectable modes: projection radiography, tomosynthesis and fluoroscopy.

Carestream’s broad product portfolio includes 2D and 3D digital medical imaging systems for general radiology and specialty areas such as pediatrics and orthopaedics (see video link), as well as digital laser imagers that output medical images to film.

About Carestream Health
Carestream is a worldwide provider of medical imaging systems; X-ray imaging systems for non-destructive testing; and precision contract coating services for a wide range of industrial, medical, electronic and other applications—all backed by a global service and support network. For more information about the company’s broad portfolio of products, solutions and services.

Digital cartographer Komodo Health has inked a multiyear deal to import Blue Health Intelligence’s real-world patient data into its map of the U.S. healthcare system.

When combined, Komodo’s database will chart the care journeys of more than 325 million individuals as they move through tests and treatments at hospitals and clinics to provide a wide, de-identified data set for research insights.

“With this partnership, life sciences companies will have a choice in how they access Blue Health Intelligence’s data and resulting aggregated insights for the first time,” Komodo co-founder and CEO Arif Nathoo, M.D., said.

“Integrated into Komodo’s Healthcare Map, these insights will arm life sciences companies with the critical intelligence and real-world data needed to truly understand what’s happening in healthcare as they advance therapeutics and vaccines,” Nathoo added.

Blue Health maintains a large, longitudinal data set built from medical and pharmacy commercial claims. The two companies hope to integrate this information across all of Komodo’s software products, according to Blue Health CEO Swati Abbott, to offer new ways of identifying candidates for clinical trials or earlier interventions to help stave off disease.

Previously, Blue Health signed a data partnership with the Health Care Cost Institute to gain access to data from Blue Cross Blue Shield Association plans as well as information used for research by universities and health analytics firms.

Komodo, meanwhile, recently disclosed a $44 million venture capital round as well as its acquisition of biopharma research software developer Mavens, which aims to apply its Healthcare Map to enterprise applications.

These can include the profiling of specialized patient populations as well as providers and tracking the progression of treatment as people move between different caregivers and specialists.

Beckman Coulter, a clinical diagnostics leader, launched its Access SARS-CoV-2 IgG II assay in countries accepting the CE Mark. The new Access SARS-CoV-2 IgG II assay quantitatively measures a patient’s level of antibodies in response to a previous SARS-CoV-2 infection. The ability to establish a quantitative baseline to evaluate an individual’s immune response to the SARS-CoV-2 virus allows clinicians to assess relative changes of an individual’s immune response to the virus over time based on a numerical value. The assay may also help researchers as they begin to understand the levels of IgG antibodies needed to be considered protective .

“Having a clearer picture of the immune response to SARS-CoV-2 plays an important role in the fight against COVID-19, especially before a vaccine is widely available,” said Shamiram R. Feinglass, MD, MPH, chief medical officer at Beckman Coulter. “Determining a quantifiable baseline is a critical step towards furthering the understanding of the adaptive immune response to SARS-CoV-2 in individuals over time.”

The Access SARS-CoV-2 IgG II quantitative assay is the latest addition to Beckman Coulter’s full suite of testing solutions designed to provide valuable information to clinicians in their fight against COVID-19. Beckman Coulter also recently launched an automated SARS-CoV-2 antigen test in the US under Policy C of the FDA’s emergency use authorization (EUA) program. While several point of care (POC) antigen tests are now available to help increase testing beyond current levels, POC tests come with workflow challenges when scaled to large patient populations. Beckman Coulter’s SARS CoV-2 Antigen test is designed to address these challenges. The organization can deliver up to 25 million tests per month, and the assay separates sample collection and processing, enabling test providers to leverage the existing infrastructure and workflows.

Results of the new Access SARS-CoV-2 IgG II test are delivered quickly on Beckman Coulter’s award-winning immunoassay analysers, including the DxI 800 high-throughput analyser, which is capable of processing up to 200 samples per hour. For more information on Beckman Coulter’s full suite of testing solutions or its commitment to the fight against COVID-19.

About the Access SARS-CoV-2 IgG II assay
The Access SARS-CoV-2 IgG II assay measures IgG antibodies directed to the receptor-binding domain of the spike protein of the novel coronavirus in response to a previous infection. The assay then provides a numerical result ranging from 2.00-450 AU/mL as well as a qualitative result for SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies. The test has a confirmed 99.9% specificity and 98.9% sensitivity 15-60 days post symptom onset. It uses immobilized virus antigens on magnetic particles to capture IgG antibodies from patient serum or plasma samples and reveals them using labelled anti-IgG antibodies. The Access SARS-CoV-2 IgG II assay can be used in Random Access Mode (RAM) and seamlessly integrated into existing workflows without batch processing. The assay can also be used with a variety of Beckman Coulter analysers, including the high-throughput DxI 800 designed for large labs, to the DxI 600 for mid-sized labs and the DxCi and Access 2 analysers for smaller labs and healthcare clinics.

About Beckman Coulter
Beckman Coulter is committed to advancing healthcare for every person by applying the power of science, technology and the passion and creativity of our teams to enhance the diagnostic laboratory’s role in improving healthcare outcomes. Our diagnostic systems are used in complex biomedical testing, and are found in hospitals, reference laboratories and physician office settings around the globe. Beckman Coulter offers a unique combination of people, processes and solutions designed to elevate the performance of clinical laboratories and healthcare networks. We do this by accelerating care with a menu that matters, bringing the benefit of automation to all, delivering greater insights through clinical informatics and unlocking hidden value through performance partnership. An operating company of Danaher Corporation since 2011, Beckman Coulter is headquartered in Brea, California, and has more than 11,000 global associates working diligently to make the world a healthier place.

Kent and Medway have gone live with a booking solution which enables direct appointment scheduling from NHS 111 and NHS 111 Online.

The decision to implement the NHS 111 First Direct Appointment Booking solution was in response to a government strategy aimed at encouraging patients who require urgent and unscheduled care to call NHS 111 in order to be directed to the most appropriate service for treatment.

This may include an appointment in primary care, urgent treatment centre (UTC), same day emergency care (SDEC) or, in extreme cases, the emergency department at the local acute trust.

The NHS Kent & Medway Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and local providers have worked with the region’s NHS 111 provider, South-East Costal Ambulance Service (SECAmb) and WASP Software on the project.

Rather than try to implement or upgrade each provider system, the Kent and Medway region chose to work with WASP Software who provide technology that is able to sit in front of each site’s IT service and manage scheduling activity.

As a result of the solution being introduced staff no longer need to check multiple systems just to establish who is due to arrive.

Michael Brett, managing director of WASP Software, said: “The work we have been doing across Kent and Medway has been driven by the need to provide direct appointment booking into emergency services which have historically been unscheduled.

“Urgent and emergency care by their very nature are unscheduled incidents and so the challenge has been how best to manage the demand on ED during these extraordinary times.”

The agreement will involve clinical AI research being applied to anonymised data to improve patient care and accelerate research into new medicines.

All of the data supplied to Sensyne will be anonymised by Royal Wolverhampton beforehand and the trust will receive around 1.3million ordinary shares in the company. This brings the total share ownership held by NHS trusts in Sensyne to 12.6%.

The trust will also receive investment of up to £250,000 per year from Sensyne across the 5-year term. The money will be used for specific investments in NHS information technology to enable the curation and analysis of data under the agreement.

Royal Wolverhampton will also receive a royalty on revenues that are generated by Sensyne from the research undertaken as part of the agreement. The financial return the trust receives from Sensyne will be reinvested back into the NHS to fund patient care.

Sultan Mahmud, chief innovation, integration and research officer at the trust, said: “In this collaboration we will focus on improving prevention, early diagnosis and treatment of illnesses for complex patients so that we can provide anticipatory care.

“Our clinical teams and informatics colleagues are looking forwarding to working with Sensyne.”

Royal Wolverhampton joins eight existing NHS trusts that have a strategic research agreement (SRA) with Sensyne, with the most recent being Milton Keynes University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in November 2020.

Paul Drayson, chief executive of Sensyne Health, added: “The SRA continues Sensyne’s momentum in expanding its anonymised patient data set and deepening the diversity of the therapeutic areas within it.

“This in turn helps provide Sensyne with the critical mass of data to improve patient care and accelerate medical research”.

The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust has signed a five-year non-exclusive strategic research agreement with Sensyne Health.