07.04.14
NHS England names Regional Innovation Fund winners
More than 40 bids have been successful in gaining a share of NHS England’s £5m Regional Innovation Fund (RIF) – designed to support and promote the adoption of innovation and the spread of best practice across the NHS.
In total, 42 bids from across NHS England, the NHS and Academic Health and Science Networks (AHSN), have been given access to funding.
The RIF bid process opened in November 2013 and there were two categories for RIF applications:
- Supporting the spread and adoption of current innovations promoted within NHS England; or
- Supporting the development or adoption of new ideas.
Funding was also broken down into various bands. For instance, an individual organisation could receive up to £50,000; up to £250,000 was available for partnership bids; and there was a maximum of £250,000 available per AHSN to take forward their innovation plans.
Winners of the awards included West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS) which is looking to develop a new integrated electronic patient record (e-PRF), storing live data streamed from peripheral devices such as ECG monitors, AEDs and pulse oximeters, as well as the more traditional patient identifiers and clinical details.
According to the team, which has received £50,000 for its bid, the e-PRF will allow individual pre-hospital clinicians, including doctors, to make entries into the patient record, allowing for better audit trails of clinician contact and activity. It is hoped the system will allow for better delivery of appropriate clinical care to patients through the use of templates and prompts.
Oxford Academic Health Science Network has also received £50,000 worth of funding, but proposes to use the field of Intra Operative Fluid Management (IOFM) as the focus for developing and implementing a solution to inform and guide commissioners with their High Impact Innovations discussions with providers.
They said: “We will build on the existing evidence base and analysis for IOFM previously undertaken by NTAC and NICE. A number of technologies and techniques can be used for monitoring fluid status and intravascular volume and/or cardiac output (CO) during surgery. These include Oesophageal Doppler Monitoring (ODM), Pulse Pressure Waveform Analysis, Stroke Volume or Pulse Pressure Variation. Of these ODM has the strongest evidence base.”
To view the entire list of 42 award winners, click here.
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