Glyn Barnes, director of strategic marketing at iRhythm, reflects on the effect the AI in Health and Care Award has had on industry, the company itself, and patients.
In September 2020, iRhythm was named a winner of the AI in Health and Care Award (managed by the Accelerated Access Collaborative, in partnership with NHSX and the National Institute for Health Research), announced at London Tech Week by the then-health secretary Matt Hancock. Across four phases, £140 million of funding was made available for the AI Award. This supports both the financing of implementation of these novel technologies and the provision of educational support for clinicians. Our Zio XT service was selected in round one of the process and combines a wearable cardiac monitoring device with a proprietary AI algorithm to detect a range of arrhythmias. Continuous ECG data is collected by a small device worn by the patient, for up to fourteen days. This is then uploaded to our proprietary AI software to provide a fast and accurate assessment and ultimately, a patient report to help clinicians make a rapid diagnoses.
All recipients of funding from the AI In Health and Care Award will tell you the same thing – that it has enabled creative and innovative products to improve NHS workflows and patient outcomes throughout NHS England’s healthcare system. Especially from a Zio XT perspective, the Award has enabled patients to have quicker but still accurate diagnoses while continuing to go about their day-to-day life with little disruption. This NHSX programme has fast-tracked the progress of Zio and many other novel technologies.
The AI Awards have given healthtech innovators the freedom to develop within the national healthcare space. One aim of the programme is to assist in the NHS’ Long Term Plan to:
- Improve outcomes for cardiovascular patients by early detection and management of conditions such as atrial fibrillation (AF)
- Assist the ambition to expand virtual clinics and remote care, not only enabling efficient access to care for hard-to-reach patient populations, but also speeding-up the overall process of diagnosis and treatment.
To reach these objectives, iRhythm has been able to work with selected sites, including Barts Health NHS Trust in London, East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust, Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital (LHCH), Gloucester Hospital, University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust and North Bristol NHS Trust. The award has supported the implementation of Zio and ensured secondary care systems can take advantage of the benefits the service presents. One of the most significant results of the Zio service is the dramatic reduction in waiting lists for ambulatory ECG testing. Furthermore, sites are also seeing a significant reduction in more costly procedures such as implantable loop recorders which typically cost around £1,500 per patient.
Not only has the AI Award given the selected healthtech innovators the ability to establish themselves within the sector, but it is also providing technologies that enable patients to be seen and/or monitored more quickly and therefore, diagnosed, and treated more quickly than before. This will lead to an improvement in outcomes. Without receiving funding from the AI in Health and Care Award, the introduction of these new technologies would have taken significantly longer, and some may not have reached the patient at all. Undoubtedly, the backlog of patients waiting to receive urgent care is one of the greatest challenges facing the UK’s National Health Service.
The funding from the AI Awards has meant that we in iRhythm have the necessary resources to help establish Zio XT as the leading light in this particular niche. The new health secretary Sajid Javid warned in July that hospital waiting lists could reach 13 million in the coming months, so technology such as ours will play a big part in combating that concern. For example, initial outcomes have shown that the introduction of Zio XT at Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital helped to reduce patient waiting times from approximately eight weeks, to around one in a very short space of time.
Reflecting on the impact of Zio, Tony Shannon, non-invasive lead cardiac physiologist at LHCH, said: “Without the assistance of iRhythm and the funding it received via the AI Awards, the pandemic could well have resulted in further increased waiting lists at LHCH, anywhere up to 20 weeks.”
We would recommend any healthtech company that is looking to make an impact in the NHS landscape and develop into a widely adopted provider of healthcare solutions, should apply for round four funding via the AI in Health and Care Award, which will open in 2022.
Without a doubt, the UK is home to some of the most cutting-edge and life-changing medical devices. This is, in-part, thanks to the NHS’ commitment to become a world leader in the use of AI and machine learning. During the pandemic, the NHS showed that innovative technologies could improve services for the better, in a speedy yet safe manner.
The Award has – and will continue to – ensure that companies can accelerate their innovations, and potentially nothave to wait many years to move from clinical trials to widespread adoption.
