Four Irish digital health innovations will take centre stage at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) Digital Health Symposium in New York later this month.
The technologies include the KEWS300 vital signs automation system by SyncroPhi Systems, Digicare’s paperless medication system, and the new Digital Health Spine Living Lab, which was launched at Maynooth University’s Digital Health Summer School earlier this year.
The projects have been selected for presentation because of their potential to “drive radical transformation of healthcare”.
According to SyncroPhi Systems, the principal function of the KEWS software is to make patient observation records a central element within a hospital’s health information system.
Vitals signs automation offers the opportunity to detect deteriorating patients early so they can be prioritised for intervention, reducing the risk of critical decline or death.
It allows a healthcare professional to complete patient observations at the point-of-care in a digitally supported mode through the use of a tablet touchscreen which is Wifi-linked to the central station of the ward and also to the server. Off-ward access can also be provided to authorised users.
Digicare’s paperless medication system been introduced into more than one hundred sites since it was launched four years ago. The system digitises medication management, from prescription to administration, reducing paperwork and errors.
In a deployment at the Royal Hospital Donnybrook, medication errors were reduced tenfold and deployment of the system was 10 times faster than conventional solutions, with a third of staff time saved, the company says.
Back in June, Maynooth University announced the launch of a digital platform hosting an extensive ‘living lab’ for secure, shared electronic health records, real-time communications, and the storage of medical assessments.
The Digital Health Spine Living Lab is built on the OpenEMR principles and was developed over a five-year period in collaboration with 50 HSE clinicians and social care workers.
The initiative is already being used to support certain vulnerable populations such as the homeless, Roma and International Protection applicants. It claims to be able to deliver improvements in the quality of clinical information, while being faster and cheaper than the current systems available in Ireland.
Also being showcased is the MyoVista wavECG by HeartSciences, a resting 12-lead ECG device designed to provide AI-enabled diagnostic information related to cardiac dysfunction.
Previously, this data has only been available through an echocardiogram, which is costly, requires specialist facilities and personnel, and often involves long waiting lists.
MyoVista has been designed to provide much earlier heart screening in community or front-line healthcare settings, allowing earlier diagnosis, with associated benefits for the health system and patients.
The device detects cardiac dysfunction through AI analysis of a resting ECG. Evaluation of the technology in one NHS care pathway at the Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust demonstrated the potential for a 35-fold financial return in returned bed capacity for the hospital and other benefits.
The 4th Digital Health Symposium takes place at the UNGA on September 24-26th 2024 in New York.
Speakers will include the WHO’s director of digital health and innovation Alain Labrique; professor of innovation at Maynooth University Martin Curley; and clinical director of radiology at Blackrock Health John Sheehan.
