EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES | BDO LLP
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25 EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES | BDO LLP
products to create tools suitable for treating coronavirus patients. ‘For a long time we have been talking about the potential for digital delivery of care and tools to support frontline clinicians. Now we are using these on a mass scale […] From helping with critical care in our leading hospitals, to providing tools to help NHS workers take care of their own mental health, the range of companies and services that has been deployed in the last month is truly impressive.’ To give a few examples, accuRx, a tool used by GPs to send text messages to patients, built a video consultation product in a weekend that was soon being used in 35,000 consultations a day. Telemedicine and virtual consulting took a big leap forward in development and adoption, with services such as Babylon, Push Doctor and Doctor Care Anywhere providing platforms for GPs to consult remotely with patients via smartphones.
Another example from Scotland is the COVID-19 tracker app developed by a team of volunteers in a collaboration between the University of St Andrews and data scientists Blue Hat Associates, to further medical research and understanding about the spread of COVID -19 within the community. How COVID-19 spreads within the community and individual households remains uncertain as current data is based on people who receive medical care, so the app allows people to share data on the members of their household including symptoms. This research, one of three research projects awarded to St Andrews as part of the Scottish Government’s COVID-19 Rapid Research programme, aims to extract key information from households’ reports of COVID-19 and link these with medical records to get a better idea of the true number of people with the disease. It will look to see if people
Even before the pandemic, HealthTech was going great guns, with funding of $47.5 billion globally in 2019 . The size of investment deals in healthcare devices and supplies jumped 148% in 2018 as new technologies brought innovation to the sector across Europe, according to a Pitchbook report on European venture capital .
NAMES AND NUMBERS According to the Association of British HealthTech Industries , the UK HealthTech sector is now the largest employer within the wider Life Sciences industry, employing 127,400 people in 3,860 companies, with a combined turnover of £24 billion. HealthTech is the second biggest sub-set of the UK tech sector, after FinTech, with more than 100 healthtech companies valued between £200m and £800m with the potential to become $1 billion businesses. Only FinTech produces more early-stage tech companies. Of the 2.9 million people who work in tech in the UK, more than 127,400 are employed in HealthTech, a number which continues to rise.
CORONAVIRUS AND BEYOND In the current climate innovation has been massively accelerated by necessity, and the piloting and mainstreaming of services has taken place in days where once it might have taken months. As people become more comfortable with using HealthTech services in response to the pandemic, there is likely to be a surge in telemedicine, remote monitoring, and home testing in the coming period. Experts are also predicting a spike in digital therapeutics and mental health tech in the second half of this year. Caroline Dinenage , UK’s Minister for Digital, describes how COVID -19 has expedited the sector’s integration into mainstream healthcare. ‘Our £36 billion HealthTech sector, which includes firms from startups to global tech players, has rallied to support those on the frontline, whether through donating technology, equipment and services for free or by working around the clock to adapt their
THERE’S AN UNPRECEDENTED DEMAND FOR MENTAL HEALTHCARE SERVICES AND SUPPORT. MENTAL HEALTH DATABASE HUB OF HOPE, WHICH SIGNPOSTS PEOPLE TO LOCAL SERVICES AND SUPPORT, REPORTS A 300% INCREASE IN PEOPLE LOOKING FOR HELP.
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