25.11.14
Innovation in action
NHE visited Sheffield yesterday to take a closer look at two innovative research projects underway in the ‘Steel City’.
One has just been given a £7.5m funding boost by the Medical Research Council (MRC), while the other has started a three-year pilot to developing its patient-led app.
We caught up with Professor Jim Wild who, along with his team on the Pulmonary, Lung and Respiratory Imaging Sheffield (POLARIS) project, has developed a state-of-the-art clinical lung imaging technique.
The technology, which uses hyperpolarised gases and a customised MRI scanner, creates images of lungs in patients affected by conditions such as smoking, cystic fibrosis, emphysema, pulmonary hypertension and asthma.
With the help of the latest funding the researchers aim to overcome several challenges to making the technology more routinely used across the clinical landscape in the UK.
Prof Wild told us that he hopes that by 2017-18 he, and his team, will have overcome several technical barriers including easing the polarisation of the gases and the hardware required for the MRI scanners. If achieved it would be a major ‘step change’ from using X-ray radiation for this type of clinical imaging.
Another project that is underway relates to piloting an innovative telehealth system and web resource to help patients and carers access support on Motor Neurone Disease (MND).
TiM (telehealth in motor neurone disease) is provided in the form of an app on a tablet computer where weekly updates on mobility and general wellbeing are sent to the patient’s specialist on MND care to identify problems and points for action.
The TiM trial, funded by NIHR (National Institute for Health Research), will assess how the telehealth system works and, if successful, will lead to a larger trial that aims to make the technology more widely available to MND patients.
Dr Esther Hobson, TiM trial manager, told NHE that the app has the potential to make a huge difference to patients with MND, particularly those living in rural areas where travelling to hospital is very difficult.
Full coverage of NHE’s visit to Sheffield and the ongoing research projects will be in the January/February edition of the magazine.
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