Earlier this month, global medical technology company Smith+Nephew and leading healthcare technology company Huma announced their collaboration to develop their remote patient monitoring service for orthopaedic surgery.
Ramsay West Midlands Hospital and Spire Bushey Hospital are currently piloting the app with their patients, while ten other hospitals (NHS and private) are expected to test the solution in the coming weeks.
As a result of the COVID 19 health crisis, it is estimated that over 250,000 patients are currently on waiting lists for orthopaedic operations in the UK, while the surgical service is running at 50% of its usual capacity. To tackle this problem and potentially save more lives by optimizing medical delivery in the field, Smith+ Nephew and Huma have introduced a solution that enables surgeons to better prepare patients before operations, improve their outcomes afterwards, while reducing the need for in-person appointments through innovative remote patient monitoring.
The two leaders in their respective fields have joined forces, combining Smith+Nephew’s pioneering orthopaedic expertise with Huma’s cutting-edge digital technology to create an app that enables a seamless journey to and from total joint replacement surgery.
Through the app, patients will be able to receive pre-surgery counselling, access virtual rehabilitation resources and make video calls with their surgical team, while clinicians will be able to monitor how patients are recovering and use health data to verify that patients will be well enough for surgery.
To ensure safe medical delivery for both patients and physicians, a COVID-19 symptom tracker built into the app checks for signs of infection before and after hospital admission.
According to Simon Tarry, Smith+Nephew’s managing director for the UK, Ireland and the Nordics, this revolutionary service is a major development that will optimize the surgical arena. He added that the partnership with the healthcare technology visionary has enabled the development of a cutting-edge app that harnesses the full potential of the end-to-end service around prosthetics that Smith+Nephew has to offer. “In the short term, the app will support our mission to bring patients back to surgery safely during the pandemic, but the longer-term capabilities of the app could transform the way surgeons and patients manage their surgical journey in the future,” he concluded.
On the other hand, Human CEO Dan Vahdat explained how the company’s platform has revolutionized the way healthcare professionals care for at-risk patients through projects in the United Kingdom, Germany and the United Arab Emirates. He added that joining forces with the orthopaedic technology pioneer will now allow orthopaedic patients to benefit from the revolution in patient care as well. He concluded that the two giants share the same vision: to provide a solution for people facing a wide variety of diseases, in order to achieve a world “where patients can live their lives to the fullest, despite their surgery or illness.”