'Hospital without walls': Microsoft-backed project to deliver bespoke healthcare to children

A new "hospital of the future" has been inaugurated at one of the largest children's hospitals in the UK in a bid to revolutionise the way patient care is delivered to young people with an emphasis on both digital and physical care.

Styled as a hospital without walls, the tech was developed by the Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool alongside Microsoft and Mindwave with one goal in mind: to tackle the finite hospital capacity and limited community resources and bring care to the most vulnerable people.

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The platform provides a "hybrid point of access", according to the trust, offering patient care for families, children, young people and clinicians to manage, treat, educate and better coordinate care to their needs. More importantly, it has an emphasis on preventative healthcare.

The hybrid structure allowed for both "physical and virtual care", and real-time monitoring of care for potential intervention, while also allowing for the patient to self-manage their own recovery.

Based on an interface built into a tablet, the tech is guided by AI that helps cater care specifically to the individual.

Healthcare is increasingly becoming more digitalised, which was likely being accelerated by the effects the coronavirus pandemic had on hospitals across the globe. Much of the reason for this is because technology databases can help improve potential care pathways, while also making bespoke care easier to perform. AI can also help filter and deliver this information.

Simply put, if carers know exactly how to address a situation, they can make the overall patient experience far more pleasant.

Alder Hey, in particular, hosts a large innovation centre which specialises in testing cutting-edge healthcare technology to solve everyday issues affecting the sector. It believes that using technology, AI, digital platforms and data can completely change how care is given.

It works alongside tech giants, SMEs, entrepreneurs and universities - particularly the nearby University of Liverpool - to invent and test new technologies such as this.

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"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", said Claire Liddy, the managing director of the Alder Hey innovation centre.

"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".

The team believes tech such as this will not only make catering care to patients easier but also increase the wealth of information that patients have access to. In essence, this can better allow them to look after themselves and better understand and manage their own treatment, which it believes can "better their life chances".

"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", she added.

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This project continues the relationship between the Trust and Mindwave, who helped develop the visual interface of the portal as well as working on the data collection.

As CEO Kumar Jacob puts it, its role "has been to ensure that the portal is visually appealing and immersive, making sure the experience that young people, children and their families have is engaging, enjoyable, simple-to-use and easy-to-understand".  

"At the same time, we want the complicated data and AI to flow seamlessly to ensure that the data flow of information is interoperable and sent across multiple devices, making the experience seamless, functional and easy for clinicians to use", he added.

A unique perspective was also granted by Umang Patel, the chief clinical information officer at Microsoft thanks to his dual role at the tech giant and as a paediatrician working in the NHS at Frimley Park Hospital in Surrey.

"It's been a real privilege to work with Alder Hey to develop the platform," he says. "Microsoft always loves projects that get 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 both locally and nationally".

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Patel praised the simplicity of the systems, highlighting only the most important aspects of care to avoid overcomplicating the systems, while also ensuring it is still "usable".

He described the project as a "trailblazing innovation" that could do wonders for the hospital and has generated significant traction.

 - The following video goes into more detail about the Alder Hey @nywhere platform.

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