Posted on: 21 October 2020

Today (Wednesday 21 October 2020), DigitalHealth.London announces the 37 NHS staff who have been successful in gaining a place on the third Digital Pioneer Fellowship. The programme supports change makers employed by NHS organisations in London and the South East to design and lead transformation projects underpinned by digital innovation. As the NHS continues to respond to and recover from the Covid-19 pandemic, digital innovation remains vital to the health and social sector.

We're pleased to say two CNWL staff have been selected as Fellows:

Christina Santana-Smith (Business, Strategy and Transformation Manager, Gordon Hospital)

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Christina’s portfolio includes strategic initiatives and digitally-enabled care, making her the lead on all related transformation projects within the Jameson division. This can involve designing new digital programs from the ground-up, procuring an existing technology/vendor, or scaling-up an existing digital pilot for wider applications. Her role involves identifying digital solutions to problems, strategic planning for the transformation, managing the change within the organisation, and project-managing to ensure implementation and delivery.

Christina's project is about improving the safety and experience of both patients and staff, and reduce the number of safety incidents on inpatient mental health wards. The Oxehealth Digital Care Assistant (DCA) is a technology that allows for non-contact monitoring of patients to support staff in caring for those patients. Using an optical sensor and infrared technology, Oxehealth allows for remote non-contact monitoring of patients’ vital signs and activity, including providing alerts for when a patient is out of bed, multiple patients are in a room, a patient has spent a potentially unsafe amount of time in a blind-spot or dangerous area of the room, or if a room is occupied but no human activity can be detected. This allows for staff to safely monitor patients without disturbing them as clinically appropriate, and to more effectively identify and respond to potential safety concerns. The effective use of staff time will also release clinical time for more meaningful and therapeutic interactions with patients. The Oxehealth DCA was selected as a contact-free technology which is technically validated as a Class II(a) medical device, has been real-world validated in mental health wards, and referenced as outstanding practice by CQC.

Christina's goals for the project are to utilise the networking and mentoring opportunities provided by the fellowship to help better understand and leverage the digital health landscape within London and the South East, to more effectively drive digital transformation within the organisation.

Dr Jai Shree Adhyaru (Consultant Psychologist / Service Manager, Children and Young People's Trauma Service, Grenfell Health and Wellbeing Service)

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Jai currently leads the Digital Subteam within the Children and Young People’s Team at Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust, Grenfell Health and Wellbeing Service, set up in February 2020.

Jai's project is about offering online therapy, conducting staff and patient surveys to assess acceptability and effectiveness.

Jai's goals for the programme are to develop her skills and knowledge of how digital innovations can be implemented within a trauma therapy service that operates both within clinical settings and within a range of community settings such as youth centres, schools and community locations.

Find out more about the Fellowship online.