Four HealthTech firms have received part of a £165,000 fund through Health Innovation Manchester’s Momentum Fund to accelerate their digital innovations.
The organisation, responsible for accelerating proven innovation into Greater Manchester’s health and social care services, has announced the winners of the ‘Momentum Fund’ with the help of a panel of representatives from patients and partners.
“This Momentum Fund call focused on the use of digital technologies in mental health and community care, and we were pleased to receive many high-quality applications,” explained Richard Deed, Associate Director of Industry for Health Innovation Manchester.
The four businesses include Brush DJ, which has received £40,000 for its Brush DJ app. The app is the only dental app currently in the NHS Digital Apps Library and endorsed by the British Dental Association.
Ben Underwood, Creator and Chief Executive of Brush DJ said: “We were delighted to receive support from Health Innovation Manchester.
“Tooth decay is a preventable disease, yet in Greater Manchester £6 million is spent every year extracting multiple decayed teeth in children every year.
“Seven of the ten localities are included in the 30 areas of poorest children’s oral health in England. Lucid Group received £45,000 for their digital innovation Anisys GO – a device that can rapidly establish a patient’s risk of severe disease in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
It is designed to help community practitioners by providing data currently only available in specialist centres. Lucid Group’s proposal is to investigate how digital outputs from Anisys GO wireless devices could improve care and support earlier intervention for patients.
“Lucid is using the Momentum funding to work with clinicians and healthcare comissioners and develop more accessible, nationally consistent care pathways,” explained Alistair Williamson, Managing Director at Lucid Innovation Group.
“We’ll be planning how Anisys GO could improve data sharing and outcomes for an under-reporting population that too often ends up prematurely in social care.” Meaningful Apps to Nurture Children (MANC), a digital project designed by Rescon Ltd has won £49,879 of funding.
MANC will integrate Rescon’s award-winning Lincus system, which includes a self-reporting system for physical, mental and social wellbeing, to support mental early detection and prevention for Greater Manchester’s children.
The funds will pay for the implementation of the project into two Greater Manchester schools, including the Lincus app and Lexplore reading assessment tools.
Finally, NHS Oldham CCG received £30,408 for its MyVytalCare app, a comprehensive, personal care record app, hosted on the Health and Social Care Network (HSCN).
The app, piloted by NHS Oldham Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), interfaces with GP systems and aims to save health and social care professionals time, effort and resources by empowering patients to take more control over their treatment and monitoring of their own conditions.
It provides reminders for personal health checks and signposts to relevant actions to improve their health.