News

The pan-northern Connected Health Cities (CHC) programme has been named Healthcare Project of the Year at the 2018 Bionow Awards.

The prestigious award recognises CHC’s innovative use of technology and NHS data in creating and embedding learning health systems across 19 North of England care pathway projects.

Announced at a glittering ceremony hosted at the Mere Golf Resort in Cheshire, the award acknowledges the step-forward that Connected Health Cities’ methodology – known as the CHC Model – has demonstrated in advancing research and health service improvement.

Each of CHC’s projects link existing and under-used data from a variety of sources. The data is used to understand and analyse how patients move through and across their local health and social care services, providing big picture insights that were previously unavailable to NHS decision makers.

Following this, the learning health system allows research-teams to design more streamlined and efficient services, optimising care for the benefit of patients. In addition care providers receive actionable information that empowers them to better plan, deliver and evaluate their work.

At the heart of the CHC Model is continuous improvement, intelligent use of patient data and patient partnerships.

Led by the Northern Health Science Alliance, the CHC programme is funded by the Department of Health as a partnership between 8 universities, 10 NHS Trusts and four Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs), including Yorkshire & Humber.

The Healthcare Project of the Year award was presented by Richard Deed from Trustech to CHC’s Chief Operating Officer, Dr Amanda Lamb. She said:

“I am delighted to accept this award on behalf of the many people and organisations that have dedicated themselves to the delivery of the CHC vision. Thanks to them we have been able to treat children with asthma at home rather than in hospital; coordinate better care for those with fragility or for vulnerable families; to better plan services for people with COPD, liver disorders and epilepsy; to save lives and reduce disability after a stroke; and to produce tools that can help us to tackle antibiotic usage.

“Our scale team science model has brought together so many talented individuals from diverse backgrounds but with a shared goal of using data to improve patient experience; this award is recognition for their dedication and their impact.”

Richard Deed, Technology Director at Trustech said:

“The key element in selecting the winner was that through bringing together a complex number of partners and organisations, the project has been able to harness and make use of clinical data. It is a project of magnitude and truly connects the North. The project is able to identify healthcare improvement opportunities and is currently applying this to 20 care pathways including alcohol misuse, COPD and, stroke and childhood obesity. The immediate challenge now for CHC is to sustain its activity and to continue to deliver patient benefit by harnessing the power of data for other clinical applications.”

The BioNow Awards celebrate excellence and success in the North’s life science sector. This year’s ceremony was attended by over 300 professionals and presented by Robin Ince from the BBC’s Infinite Monkey Cage.

To find out more about the work of Connected Health Cities please visit www.connectedhealthcities.org, connect on Twitter (@CHCNorth) or search the hashtag #DataSavesLives.