Access To Innovation Fund winners
In November 2017, Apperta CEO Becky Wassall launched the Access to Innovation Fund at NHS Ideas Lab. This new grant programme focusses on supporting people with early stage innovative ideas with the aim of enhancing patient care and supporting the NHS.
The fund is provided by Boehringer Ingelheim but independently administered by Apperta. We were looking to support projects which already had a prototype but needed additional investment to develop further before a pilot.
We received more than a hundred applications, and shortlisted a dozen, which our independent panel has been busy interviewing and reviewing. We were delighted with the overall standard of applications, which was very high, and the final decisions were not easy.
We are excited to announce the funded projects today!
Each project will be introducing themselves in more detail over the coming weeks, but for today, we include a brief overview of them all here:
Epidur.io
Currently in many hospital settings, management of the aftercare of patients following Labour Epidural is paper-based and error-prone. The workflow, while functioning, has extensive scope for improvement and integration with existing electronic care records. Significantly, these existing EHRs do not currently have the inbuilt flexibility/capability to provide a suitable workflow for managing requesting, insertion, and aftercare of labour epidurals.
Our project aims to create a proof of concept ‘nano’-EHR which covers this specific use case and delivers a workflow which is above all safe, reliable, and user friendly. An electronic system furthermore gives the opportunity for additional functionality such as avoiding dual entry of clinical information where it can be pulled from the existing EHR. Management functions such as audit of personal practice and unit-wide audit and reporting are also much easier with an electronic system.
Lungs at Home
Lung function testing is used by healthcare professionals to diagnose respiratory disease, and to monitor respiratory health. This project seeks to develop a digital tool for recording and communicating the results of function testing between patients and healthcare professionals. This will enable us to launch a pilot and evaluate the effectiveness of a digital solution compared to existing paper based workflows and dated tools.
MS Learning Banks
A group of people affected by Multiple Sclerosis (MS) are developing an online peer-to-peer, educational resource for people with MS, and are calling it the MS Learning Bank. This collects people’s best ideas and things they do to overcome the day-to-day problems presented by having MS, from best diets, where to go to adapt to your car, how to apply for benefits, etc. We think there is a lot to gain from sharing knowledge. We have made an animation to explain things:
With the help of Apperta foundation we are preparing the resource for launch. The objectives of our project include:
● To design and implement the necessary digital infrastructure that will enable us to collect user data and understand user behaviours.
● To carry out user testing, collecting and analysing data on the user experience and impact of using the platform.
● To use the results of user testing to adapt the existing prototype making it easier to use and have a greater impact on people’s lives.
● To make sure the prototype is launch-ready.
Mypals
mypals is a web-based platform to connect people with life-limiting illnesses to people who can support them to remain independent, enjoy life and stay connected. mypals will, in the first instance, be a digital platform (a web-based application), allowing people willing to volunteer to establish a connection with people with life-limiting illnesses.
At a design event in July 2017, patients developed the following value proposition:
I will be able to understand my illness;
access the help I want to live life to the full;
gain acceptance of what has to be; maintain tenacity of sprit;
live and laugh often and loudly, especially with friends.
Volunteers developed their own value proposition:
I will add value, help people and fulfil my potential.
mypals will be developed as a white label product, customisable to each geographic location in which it operates.
PiBaby
We wish to create a prototype neonatal simulation manikin based on commodity components, powered by a Raspberry Pi credit-card sized computer and controlled by open source software.
The project aims to improve access to simulation training, resulting in an improvement in the quality of care provided for patients needing resuscitation. This will be achieved through reducing the cost of the equipment required and inspiring a community of enthusiasts to customise and improve on our original manikin. Hospital simulation suites, medical or nursing schools and community life support/ first aid programmes will be able to alter and refine the hardware and software to suit their own needs for training.
Somno
Anaesthetics is one of the most data rich specialities but much of this is lost as for even digitally mature trusts it is all still mostly recorded on paper.
The overriding objective of this project is to extend the work, initially started at an NHS Hack Day, on creating an open source digital anaesthetic chart.
This will involve:
- User interface work to make something attractive and usable, as well as functional
- Modelling of patient flow and clinician working to create a system ready for pilot
- Integration with an anaesthetic monitor to prove utility
- Creating open API’s to facilitate interoperability with existing clinical systems
My hope is that this work lays the foundation an open source, platform agnostic, system that allows for better working in perioperative medicine and to enable the use of the data created in a patient journey.
Further details about the Access To Innovation Fund
The Access To Innovation Fund brings the Boehringer Ingelheim vision of Value Through Innovation to life, by supporting social enterprises which are working to improve health outcomes, enhance patient care and wellbeing, and make the healthcare system more efficient.
The Boehringer Ingelheim Innovation Fund is independently administered by the Apperta Foundation CIC.
The Boehringer Ingelheim Innovation Fund was launched in November 2017, with a £100,000 grant to the Apperta Foundation from Boehringer Ingelheim Ltd.
The Fund will support social enterprises which are working to improve health outcomes, enhance patient care and wellbeing, as well as releasing clinicians’ time for patient care by creating more efficiencies in the healthcare system.
Projects supported by the Fund will use innovative ways to address unmet needs.
Grants are awarded in an open and transparent process, led by an independent panel appointed by the Apperta Foundation CIC. Boehringer Ingelheim Ltd has no influence whatsoever, directly or indirectly, on this process.
All outcomes from Projects supported by the Fund will be published, in line with the Fund’s principle of openness and transparency. Any software developed with support from the Fund will be shared with an open source or creative commons licence.
