West Midlands healthcare innovations highlighted in new report

The West Midlands Academic Health Science Network (WMAHSN), which leads the collaboration between academia, industry, health and care providers and the public, has released its annual impact report, highlighting some incredible healthcare innovations that have come out of the West Midlands during the most challenging year in history for the UK’s health and care system.

671 sites using innovations across the West Midlands, 500 patients benefitting from a new Emergency Laparotomy pathway and 15,906 being diagnosed with heart conditions and bringing in more than £4 million worth of investment.

Key innovations highlighted in the report are:

• Guidance on how to safely switch warfarin to DOAC (direct oral anticoagulants) therapy in patients that are prescribed long-term anticoagulation medication. The WMAHSN supported local teams across the West Midlands in identifying patients who needed to switch medication and make sure they could do so safely. This led to an increase in confidence of anticoagulation nurses and pharmacy professionals and reduced the burden on local anticoagulation services by switching to drugs which can be more easily prescribed and managed long-term.
• Transfer of care around medicines (TCAM) to care homes throug direct referral of discharged residents to pharmacy teams which provide services to care homes. This resulted in direct support for care home residents, enabling them to receive accurate and timely administration of medicines after discharge from hospital throughout the pandemic, while pharmacy teams were unable to provide home-based medicines optimisation that patients needed.
• Supporting on the England-wide implementation and adoption of HeartFlow, a non-invasive, cardiac test for stable symptomatic patients with coronary heart disease. One of the main benefits of using HeartFlow is that it allows doctors to get more information about a patient’s condition quicker which helps with more efficient clinical decision making.
• Facilitating the development of the Maxi-Magni Card, a handheld magnifier lens and safe solution which enables staff wearing PPE to read small print, without the need for glasses, helping to make life easier on the front line.

• Dignio - a digital remote care solution and mobile app for the management of COVID-19 patients, which aims to improve the care of those self-isolating. The app helps patients stay at home safely and avoid unnecessary admissions to hospital as well as alerting clinical staff of those more seriously ill who need prompt admission.

Tony Davis, Director of Innovation & Commercial at the WMAHSN, said: “We are confident that the WMAHSN will continue to positively impact on the health and wellbeing of patients and populations at a local, regional and national level, as we emerge from what has been a challenging year for all and step forward into what could be the most innovative period the sector has ever seen.”

To read the full impact report, visit the WMAHSN website: https://www.wmahsn.org/