Software solution selected for NHS Innovation Accelerator

IEG4 software innovation for the Continuing Healthcare (CHC) Assessment Process has been selected to join the NHS Innovation Accelerator (NIA) in 2019.

IEG4’s CHC assessment process automation tool, CHC2DST, underpins the digitisation of the CHC process and aims to improve service quality, patient safety and productivity by eliminating paper assessments, and automating the workflow and communication to speed up decisions around eligibility.

The solution had been co-developed with five local CCGs in Cheshire and Wirral whose performance against the key NHS England metrics has also been transformed. The Cheshire and Wirral CCGs now form part of the NHS England Strategic Improvement Programme team for CHC, helping to establish and communicate an improved vision and service standard for CHC to their NHS England colleagues.

Charles MacKinnon, healthcare director at IEG4 said: “We are delighted to join the NHS Innovation Accelerator. As patient referrals look set to increase in CHC with a growing and increasingly elderly population, the need for effectively managing the process is clear.

“Cheshire and Wirral CCGs has shown that the NHS can adopt innovation rapidly with the right mind-set and leadership. Many other progressive CCGs are now following suit and have access to a readily-deployable blueprint for digital transformation.”

NHS England stated to the Public Accounts Committee the aim of saving £855 million from the projected growth in CHC spend by 2021, which, it says, CCGs could help achieve by adopting best practice, speeding up assessment work, reducing administrative costs and using better case management.

The new digital CHC assessment process allows recommendations to be verified by reviewers faster and will automatically generate an audit trail with supporting evidence under each case to help apply policy consistently and effectively according to the National Framework.

Each of the new innovations joining the NIA this year offer solutions supporting priority areas for England’s NHS: Mental Health, Primary Care and early diagnosis and prevention of cancer.

Dr Séamus O'Neill, chair of the AHSN Network, said: “The NHS Innovation Accelerator is one of the flagship programmes of the AHSN Network. We are very proud of the impact it is having in supporting innovators across the NHS and social care. Many very promising NIA innovations have benefitted from visibility and evidence generation through the AHSNs. It is gratifying too that we are already seeing a number of the NIA innovations getting traction in terms of adoption and spread with patient and population benefit as a consequence. We look forward to working with the new NIA Fellows over the coming months to develop and deploy these life-saving innovations at scale across the country.”