A digital healthcare service that uses artificial intelligence to help patients with COPD (Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) has been successful in the latest round of the Artificial Intelligence in Health and Care Award.
Dynamic Scot is a digital solution which enables remote monitoring of patient conditions with new technologies, support from clinicians, and tools for self-management. It is a collaboration between NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, the West of Scotland Innovation Hub, Digital Health and Care Innovation Centre, and Storm ID, developers of the Lenus Health Platform.
This service is currently offered as part of a research basis to 2,000 people who have COPD by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and NHS Lothian. COPD affects approximately 120,000 in Scotland and is the second most common cause for emergency hospital admissions.
Dynamic Scot was one of a number of organisations to receive the funding. The AI Award is making £140 million available over four years to accelerate the testing and evaluation of artificial intelligence technologies which meet the aims set out in the NHS Long Term Plan.
The AI Award is one of the programmes that make up the NHS AI Lab, led by NHSX and delivered in partnership with the Accelerated Access Collaborative (AAC) and National Institute for Health Research (NIHR).
The Award aims to increase the impact of AI-driven technologies to help solve clinical and operational challenges across the NHS and care settings. It will speed up the most promising technologies through the regulatory process by building an evidence base to demonstrate the effectiveness and safety of AI-driven technologies in health and social care.
Four ‘phases’ of award are available to support AI solutions from initial feasibility to evaluation within NHS and social care settings.
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde hosts the West of Scotland Innovation Hub which works with NHS, academia and industry to provide test bed infrastructure, leadership and support, gain funding for, and trial innovative digital solutions to key healthcare challenges. The Hub supports a number of Artificial Intelligence projects , device evaluation studies and wider digital service developments.
Dr Chris Carlin, Clinical Lead of Dynamic Scot and Consultant Respiratory Physician, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, said:
“We’re really pleased to have been successful in the latest round of Artificial Intelligence in Health and Care Award. COPD is a global healthcare challenge and managing it has become even more challenging with the COVID-19 pandemic. The COPD digital service we’ve developed has helped reduce that pandemic impact, with a positive impact on patient care and outcomes. This award will allow us to bring the exciting innovations – AI insights – that we’ve developed in the research environment through into clinical practice. The evaluations that this award will allow us to undertake will let us gather the evidence about how best to use these AI insights to support people with COPD and their clinical teams to co-manage their condition.”
Dr David Lowe, Co-Clinical Lead of Dynamic Scot and Consultant Emergency Medicine, West of Scotland Innovation Lead NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, said:
“The award allows the Dynamic Scot team to continue to transform COPD care in Scotland and share the digital service with the rest of the UK and worldwide. Artificial Intelligence embedded clinical decision support delivered to COPD patients will, we hope to demonstrate, enhance care for this group of patients but also provide a template for future work in other clinical areas such as heart failure and the challenges of an ageing population. Robust evaluation of data driven strategies such as AI will enable the NHS to streamline adoption giving confidence to both patients and clinicians ensuring engagement and realisation of the benefits of innovation within the NHS.”
Paul McGinness, Co-founder and Director, Storm ID, said:
“The Artificial Intelligence in Health and Care Award recognises the world class data science work undertaken to date by the project team. We look forward to working with the NHS to operationalise the use of AI driven personalised risk prediction scores within clinical practice, to ultimately help patients with COPD.”
Dan Bamford, Deputy Director AI Award, Accelerated Access Collaborative, said:
“Congratulations to Dynamic Scot on their success as one of our winners in Round 2 of the AI Award. We look forward to working with them as they develop and test their technology further, so that more patients can benefit from this cutting-edge artificial intelligence.”