It has been another eventful year for THERAPYAUDIT, with several product releases, three trips to China and a number of interesting opportunities emerging at home and abroad. With a significant birthday coming up, we added a little early icing to the cake with our new-look web site..
Effective Technology. Better Outcomes
As a technology company we know that technology, however clever and leading edge it might be, is simply a means to an end. That end is to produce better outcomes for patients and better diagnostic tools for clinicians and that just about sums up THERAPYAUDIT‘s simple mission statement: Effective technology. Better outcomes.
Looking ahead, new Point of Care Diagnostics (POCD) devices and wearables promise to transform the way chronic conditions are treated; improving outcomes by reducing or eliminating the need for hospital visits.
Our core TAMONITOR platform will continue to evolve from its origins in blood test monitoring into a family of products that covers vitamin distribution and sexual health, as well as community-based monitoring. We are working on new variants that will support screening for sleep apnoea and serious arrhythmia – such as atrial fibrillation, as well as a home-based renal monitoring service.
New places, new faces
THERAPYAUDIT’s MD Chris Wright has managed to squeeze in three trips to China over the last few months, initially to attend the Open Innovation Workshop which took place in the northern port city of Tianjin in July, under the auspices of the Yorkshire and Humber AHSN and the University of Bradford.
It will come as no surprise that China represents a huge opportunity for software developers in the healthcare sector. Chinese market statistics are eye-watering… a population of around 1.34 billion; health spending projected to grow to $1 trillion in 2020 (1% of GDP pa); about 320,000 hospitals and clinics and over 9,000 medical research institutes; 1.39 million doctors; the world’s third largest pharmaceutical market..
Contacts made at the workshop have already proved fruitful and Chris has been back twice on follow up visits. More here.
There was a rather sombre footnote to the workshop when, in the following month, Tianjin hit the world headlines after two massive explosions caused devastation in the area around a container storage site, killing 173. Our partner’s offices were wrecked in the blast, though fortunately nobody was hurt at that location.
The plusses… and the plusses
Our core TAMONITOR platform is in the process of being upgraded to a new PLUS version. This new release features improvements in speed and page load times, a new tablet/touch-friendly design, simplified search, one-touch new patient entry and automated SMS reminders. You can read all about TAMONITOR+ here .
TACCARD has also been upgraded to a new PLUS version. TACCARD has been used for over 5 years to support sexual health advice and condom distribution across London and in Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire and Suffolk. It now benefits around 75,000 people. The new release is speedier and sports a brand new design, touch interface, online registration as well as new report types. You can read all about TACCARD+ here.
Success stories (and piano accompaniments)
Though not mentioned so far, the junior member of the THERAPYAUDIT family, TASTART, has been gaining momentum. TASTART supports the Vitamin D distribution schemes that are part of the Healthy Start initiative, in accordance with NICE guideline PH56.
The need for vitamin D supplementation among at-risk groups has been driven by the re-emergence in recent years of rickets, a disease that many had thought banished from modern life. TASTART has been developed in conjunction with the London Borough of Lewisham and has been in use there for the past two years.
The results so far (in our Case Study published in June) show that 30% of eligible mothers and 50% of eligible infants had been signed up to the scheme at that point – representing a 50% increase in uptake of mothers, and a threefold increase in uptake for infants. This outcome is a tribute to the hard work of the Lewisham team. Their success will shortly be showcased on the NICE website and we are very pleased to have played our part in the scheme’s implementation.
TASTART is now being introduced in other boroughs with more at the evaluation stage. To tell the story in pictures, we have produced a short three minute video, with piano accompaniment, courtesy of Erik Satie.
Keeping up appearances
Just to prove that looks are everything, we launched our new web site in June. The new site is designed to look good on mobile phones and tablets as well as desktop PCs. Our web designer tells us that it is a big improvement on the old, static site and it certainly is a lot nimbler – but you can judge that for yourself by visiting our home page.
Looking ahead to 2016
2016 will bring a new look to our platform – with increased extensibility in both our clinical and public health platforms. TAMONITOR will start to receive wearable data such as ECG traces and blood pressure to provide both monitoring and screening. TACCARD and TASTART will be joined by additional support for NHS Healthchecks, substance misuse and smoking cessation. And inevitably we’ll move closer to our patient portal. In China we’ll be trialling our platform in both public and private hospitals.
But much more important we will be celebrating our Big Birthday Bash in Birmingham (with all those ‘Bs’ it’s bound to be brilliant!)
In the 20 Years since we started we’ve hardly dared look back, but we might just use our birthday to reflect on how technology and lifestyles have evolved since the days when a fax machine was considered the must-have office accessory and THERAPYAUDIT’s pioneering blood test monitoring service RheMOS was first introduced. We will be sending out invitations in the New Year.
In the meantime, we wish all our customers, partners and friends a very happy Christmas and we look forward to seeing you in 2016.
