Log in
Helicon Health is a UCL spin-out company providing a stroke prevention clinical management service (Helicon Heart) developed through UCL health informatics research. In partnership with Whittington Health, a large north London hospital, Helicon Heart provides stroke prevention management to 5 NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCG) across north London and Hertfordshire, covering 2 Hospital Trusts, 30 General Practice delivery sites and 3 Community Pharmacies. The system underpins clinical care for 3,000 at-risk patients, and Helicon Health has secured additional contracts to extend this to 4,500 patients in 2014. Every prevented stroke saves the NHS £16,000 per annum; the estimated saving to each CCG is approximately £500,000 per annum, to which the Helicon Heart service makes a significant contribution.
Research at the university of ulster into the theory and practice of person-centredness has resulted in:
i. the development of person-centred practices that lead to better outcomes for patients, staff and teams.
ii. the influencing of policy for the development of person-centred services.
Research into understanding and addressing the gaps between evidence and practice in health care has been conducted and applied at the University of Manchester. Working within the Department of Health funded National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRC) for Greater Manchester, research teams have applied an evidence-based approach to knowledge mobilisation to improve the identification and management of two vascular related conditions: impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) and chronic kidney disease (CKD). As a result of the initial pilot projects in Greater Manchester 1863 new CKD patients have been identified with the success leading to a further implementation programme that has spread to other areas of the UK. The IGT pilot project has directly led to the improved health of targeted patients in two areas of Greater Manchester.
Life for those who have had a stroke across England has been improved through assessment of their needs six months after their stroke, followed up with support so that these needs are met. The assessment tool used was developed at the University of Manchester using knowledge from applied research into knowledge translation and service improvement, which emphasised the need for tailored, context-sensitive approaches to implementation of evidence. The flexible assessment tool (GM-SAT) that can be used by a range of practitioners is now in use across England in a range of providers, enabling the fulfilment of national strategy and improved care for these patients.
Research conducted at the University of Manchester (UoM) has shaped the design of national systems of accreditation for general practice in the UK, Europe and beyond. Accreditation systems set standards that reflect key aspects of the organisational systems and processes in general practice that are needed to ensure delivery of good quality care. Accreditation systems also provide a kite mark of quality assurance and act as a platform for supporting continuous quality improvement. UoM developed indicators of quality in general practice structure and organisation and demonstrated how they could be used effectively to improve quality. Working in partnership with health professional organisations, governmental organisations and other universities, UoM used knowledge from the research to develop systems for general practice accreditation now used in the UK and across Europe.
State-of-the-art reasoning systems developed in the UoA have underpinned the standardisation of ontology languages, and play a critical role in numerous applications. For example, HermiT, software developed in the UoA, is being used by Électricité de France (EDF) to provide bespoke energy saving advice to 265,000 customers in France, and a roll out of the use of the system to all of their 17 million customers is planned.
Ensuring that a new medicine improves or maintains a person's quality of life is important. Abbott's longstanding collaborative relationship with health professionals and service users has enabled the development of two patient-reported, quality of life instruments (CFQoL, LupusQoL). Abbott's expertise has contributed to the development of policy/guidelines concerning quality of life measurement in clinical trials for the European Medicines Agency and European Cystic Fibrosis Society. The instruments have been adopted internationally with the LupusQoL providing a global business opportunity for a US translation company. At the request of pharmaceutical companies, the LupusQoL is translated into the numerous languages required for use in their multi-national clinical trials of new medicines.
A quiet technology revolution in the UK has been changing the way that police officers on the beat and hospital nurses access and record information, using handheld electronic notebooks that bring large time and cost savings. This revolution began as a University of Glasgow research programme and led to the creation of a successful spin-out company, Kelvin Connect. Acquired in 2011 by the UK's largest provider of communications for emergency services, Kelvin Connect has grown to 30 staff. Its Pronto systems are now in use by 10% of UK police forces and nursing staff in several UK hospitals.
Beneficiaries of this research are patients in intensive care and healthcare staff. This research has had impacts in two distinct but related areas:
These advances are informed by our synthesis and application of rigorous, innovative methodologies relating to questionnaire development and real-time data collection.
Front-line nursing managers in French hospitals are often perceived, by themselves and others, as cogs in an administrative machine, trapped between conflicting demands for increased economic efficiency and health-care quality. Vaughan Rogers' work with ca. 180 managers, trainees and training officers in the Rhône-Alpes region's hospital service has challenged this perception. Within the framework of continuing professional development, he has enhanced nursing management's awareness of its capacity to influence the conduct of change in the profession and has inspired reinvigoration of the design of training programmes for this staff at the major Teaching Hospital for healthcare professionals in Grenoble.