An NHS trust in Salford is to upload data from patients’ wearable devices to their electronic records.
The Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust recently entered into a partnership with data connectivity platform provider Validic to develop a new model of integrated care which includes personal health data.
According to Validic, this partnership will enable the integration of patient-generated health data from in-home medical devices, wearables and consumer health apps into the Electronic Health Record (EHR). The aim of the initiative is to identify how the integration of this data yields a measurable difference in patient care, outcomes and engagement.
In the long term, the trust plans to expand the system to include a wider range of clinical, fitness, biometric, lab and lifestyle data.
Salford Royal – said to be one of the most digitally advanced NHS trusts – incorporates health systems across the western part of Manchester. It has received £10m to pioneer innovative and revamped approaches to digital services, with an emphasis on remote services.
“Salford Royal is making personal health data actionable and valuable to both providers and patients by enabling access to the needed insights and context,” said Validic chief executive Drew Schiller. “By placing a focus on preventative and personalised care, Salford Royal is pioneering how data are used to improve the affordability and accessibility of healthcare.”
As well as feeding into the EHR, data will be aggregated into a database that can be used by clinicians and researchers to identify trends, correlations and causations.
For example, researchers will be able to correlate sleep and heart rate data to identify new care methods for weight and diabetes management – giving patients greater control to self-manage their condition and offering physicians insight into how a patient’s lifestyle impacts their health and disease, Validic explained.
