Therapeutics player accepted onto DigitalHealth.London accelerator

Digital therapeutics company Ampersand Health has been accepted onto the DigitalHealth.London Accelerator.

Among the key themes for the accelerator are:

• Patient facing innovation designed to improve care quality and the experience of using NHS services.
• Capacity building platforms which use technology to improve patient flow and increase the efficiency of care
• Improving NHS access for SMEs and digital health products and fast tracking their adoption

In selecting companies, the DigitalHealth.London Accelerator looked at the relevance of the problem being addressed to the NHS and the company’s readiness to scale in the context of its Long Term Plan.

Patients with inflammatory long term conditions routinely wait over 18 weeks for treatment and that is in part caused by the NHS’s continued reliance on a model of care built around routine outpatient appointments, which (especially for diseases of relapse and remission) rarely correlate with clinical need.

Ampersand’s apps provide a personalised care plan, health analytics and custom recommendations, as well as acting as a locus for virtual interactions with their care team.

A patient management & analytics portal allows hospital teams to view real time data on symptoms, sentiment and adherence; manage their patients virtually, and intervene before their flares become clinical.

Nader Alaghband, co-founder at Ampersand Health, said: “People with long term conditions see huge value in building up a detailed and actionable picture of their health, and in clinical teams using their data to improve interventions and keep them out of hospital. Our model allows clinicians to see 47% more patients with the same resources and is shown to result in 50% fewer out of hours A&E visits. Most importantly, 85% of patients would choose it over existing models of care.”

Ampersand’s intervention was developed with gastroenterologists, rheumatologists and patients at King's College Hospital and The Royal London, with support from Innovate UK and national charities including Crohn’s & Colitis UK and the National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society.

Sara Nelson, programme director at DigitalHealth.London Accelerator said: “This year, we received a record number of applications to the DigitalHealth.London Accelerator, and are delighted to accept 20 companies, including Ampersand Health, onto the programme. Between them, they have great potential to make a huge difference to the lives of patients and staff – either directly, or indirectly, through improvements to the way the system runs behind-the-scenes. These innovations could help the NHS draw ever closer to delivering a truly digital, inclusive service for everyone.”