Digital Well being Espresso Time Briefing ☕
Your morning abstract of digital well being information, info and occasions to find out about if you wish to be “within the know”.
👇 Information
🩸 NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) has launched its first modern digital actuality coaching app ‘NHSBT Blood Identification’ which realistically simulates the method of testing blood for lifesaving blood transfusions. This opens up its world-leading coaching to extra college students excited about a profession in biomedical science or transfusion science. Rajpal Singh from St George’s in Bristol, who wants common blood for thalassaemia, visited the NHSBT Filton web site in Bristol to hitch a coaching session within the apply lab, studying the right way to match blood varieties for protected transfusion. He used the brand new digital actuality app and likewise used the actual lab tools. The brand new VR coaching is already being utilized in NHSBT and has simply been launched on the Meta Quest App Lab retailer.
🦠 The microbiome can establish those that profit from mixture immunotherapy throughout a number of totally different cancers, together with uncommon gynaecological cancers, biliary tract cancers and melanoma. Researchers from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, the Olivia Newton-John Most cancers Analysis Institute in Australia, and collaborators, have recognized particular strains of micro organism which can be linked with a constructive response to mixture immunotherapy within the largest examine of its sort. The examine, printed as we speak (1 March) in Nature Medication, particulars a signature assortment of microorganisms in a person’s intestine micro organism which will assist establish those that would profit from mixture immunotherapy and assist clarify why the efficacy of this remedy is in any other case arduous to foretell.
📈 Researchers from the College of Michigan have demonstrated that the Epic Sepsis Mannequin’s threat stratification accuracy was considerably impacted by whether or not its predictions had been restricted to information collected earlier than a affected person met sepsis standards. Within the examine, printed this month within the New England Journal of Medication (NEJM) AI, the analysis staff indicated that AI instruments able to predicting sepsis onset may enhance remedy and outcomes. Instruments to establish sepsis threat, just like the Epic Sepsis Mannequin (ESM), have been developed and deployed in well being programs throughout america, however questions on their accuracy and scientific utility have been raised lately. Huge utilisation of Epic’s digital well being report (EHR) system, inside which the ESM is embedded, has led to a number of assessments of the sepsis instrument’s efficiency.
💰 Ema, an AI platform devoted to reworking girls’s well being and wellness, has efficiently concluded its newest bridge spherical of funding, securing almost $2 million. The spherical noticed participation from Kubera Ventures and Victorum Capital, in addition to earlier buyers Hearst Labs, Wormhole Capital, Acumen America, and Techstars. Based on the precept that ladies’s well being deserves personalised, empathetic, and evidence-based help, Ema leverages generative AI (GenAI) know-how to supply personalised well being help at scale. This modern strategy has not solely resonated inside the direct-to-consumer (DTC) area with greater than 100,000 customers however has additionally made substantial inroads into the B2B sector, securing over $100K in contracts inside simply 30 days after pivoting to this mannequin, in keeping with info supplied by the corporate.
💊 Most cancers sufferers dwelling with a uncommon illness which assaults the physique’s personal organs following a life-saving stem cell transplant are set to learn from a pioneering new drugs on the NHS. Belumosudil (Rezurock) is an modern remedy for continual graft versus host illness, which develops in round a 3rd of sufferers who’ve undergone stem cell or bone marrow transplants for blood cancers resembling leukaemia and lymphoma. The drug is given as soon as a day as a pill and works by inhibiting the proteins that are chargeable for the possibly life-threatening inflammatory response brought on by continual graft versus host illness. It may be taken at house, decreasing the variety of hospital appointments for some sufferers. In scientific trials utilizing belumosudil to deal with continual graft versus host illness, as much as three quarters of sufferers responded to remedy and this was only for treating illness affecting the mouth, gut or joints.
❓ Do you know that?
Half (50%) of nurses and care staff have skilled psychological well being issues and stress because of not having the related abilities to carry out their jobs effectively, in keeping with new analysis from healthcare training startup, FuturU.
Psychological well being is likely one of the most urgent challenges at present confronted by the well being and social care sector as an entire. In accordance with NHS Digital, psychological unwell well being accounts for over 25% of illness absence within the NHS. In 2022, councils in England misplaced over 500,000 working days to psychological unwell well being and stress amongst care staff. But, the hyperlink between psychological well being and the abilities hole is much less effectively recognised or mentioned.
📖 What we’re studying
How Medical Imaging is Redefining Healthcare – John Memarian, VP at digital healthcare innovator CitiusTech, explores medical imaging, together with how the know-how is impacting healthcare
🚨 This week’s occasions
1 March 2024, Westminster Well being Discussion board – Subsequent steps for respiratory well being providers in England