Helicon Health and Inhealthcare Join Forces to Improve Stroke Prevention
LONDON, November 18, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --
A new partnership between two digital health companies is set to deliver a step change in cardiac services in the NHS - making it easier for clinicians to monitor at-risk patients and prevent thousands of strokes.
Helicon Health - a University College London spin-out headed by leading cardiologist Professor David Patterson - has joined forces with digital healthcare specialist Inhealthcare to integrate its HeliconHeart service with GP clinical systems across the UK - making it available to hundreds of thousands of NHS patients.
HeliconHeart combines clinical management software with clinician and patient education - allowing clinicians to manage patients with Atrial Fibrillation (AF) in the community instead of hospital, and enabling patients to self-monitor. Research has shown the unique service could help prevent stroke in at-risk patients*. HeliconHeart is compliant with National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines on anticoagulation and self-monitoring, and cited as a learning exemplar in NICE's guidelines for atrial fibrillation.
More than 7,000 patients are now benefiting from the integrated service, currently delivered from 33 community sites and 2 hospitals across 5 CCGs.
The partnership with Inhealthcare means:
- Through its N3-compatible Clinical Aggregator Platform, HeliconHeart software can be integrated with all UK GP systems and a wide range of other clinical systems - ramping up availability across the NHS;
- Reduced costs for NHS organisations using the service - with no up-front cost for the NICE-recommended CoaguChek patient self-monitoring device (supplied by Roche);
- For self-monitoring patients, the introduction of multi-channel flexibility to upload their results online or send them to their clinician via SMS or IVR (Interactive Voice Response).
Professor David Patterson, CEO at Helicon Health commented: "By joining forces with Inhealthcare, we overcome two key barriers that have hampered progress in stroke prevention, namely interoperability to support the wider adoption of our service and affordable access to an approved self-monitoring device. It is a significant milestone and I believe could lead to a step change in how the NHS cares for people at risk of stroke."
Simon Jones, Commercial Director, Inhealthcare added:"We are delighted to be able to combine our digital healthcare expertise with Helicon Health's extensive clinical experience to help healthcare providers improve outcomes of patients at risk of stroke. Our familiarity with GP systems and access to the NHS spine unlocks HeliconHeart's full potential to improve the management of anticoagulation patients and encourage more patients to self test."
For media inquiries please contact Libby Howard on +44(0)7879-446277, Libby@judgeandhoward.com or Ruth Devlin on +44(0)7896-125764, ruth@judgeandhoward.com
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