Alder Hey partners with Microsoft and Mindwave for revolutionary digital health platform
Alder Hey has launched a “ground-breaking” hybrid digital health platform which it says will revolutionise how care is delivered to children and young people.
Alder Hey Hospital
AlderHey@nywhere is described as a hospital of the future, where patient and clinical care is delivered physically and virtually, to create a “hospital without walls.”
The technology has been developed by Alder Hey Innovation in collaboration with Microsoft and Mindwave.
“At the moment, healthcare is most often about treating people that are ill. What we want to do is to shift to a more preventative model of care that is individualised and tailored and that empowers children and young people to take ownership of their healthcare and treatment,” explained Claire Liddy, Managing Director of Alder Hey Innovation.
“There are so many different technologies out there now, including wearable technology and devices such as smartwatches that enable you to monitor your health at home. What we needed was a hybrid platform to bring it all together into one place so that families, children and young people could access it, alongside their clinicians at the hospital.”
The platform was created to address the capacity of hospital and community resources, both in terms of physical space and workforce. This was paired with increased demand for accident and emergency admissions, long waiting times for outpatient appointments and the increased lengths of hospital stays.
“We think the AlderHey@nywhere™ platform will allow us to elevate the level and access to care for children and young people who tell us that they want to be empowered to understand and manage their own healthcare and treatment,” continued Liddy.
“It also allows us to move to a more preventative healthcare modelling, making healthcare more individual and personalised.”
Umang Patel is Chief Clinical Information Officer at Microsoft and also a paediatrician working in the NHS at Frimley Park Hospital.:
“Microsoft always loves projects that gets its staff excited – to be given the opportunity to help children and young people – was one such project. Hopefully we have been able to bring some new insights, skills and innovations that will help Alder Hey not only solve problems locally but scale beyond the Liverpool region.
“What they have done at Alder Hey is great for many reasons, but two stand out: first, the Alder Hey team has managed to keep it simple. If you ask 100 doctors what they want in an ideal system, they will tell you a million important things. The team has managed to scale that back, kept it usable, and brought the most important things to the front. Second, is the momentum they have generated- it’s trailblazing innovation at its best.”
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