Exploring public attitudes towards the use of digital health technologies and data

Health Foundation – November 2023

• The NHS is looking to advances in digital health technologies and data to help tackle current pressures and meet rising demand. But ensuring new uses of technology and data have the backing of the public is critical if they are to become business as usual.
• In March 2023, we commissioned a survey of 7,100 nationally representative members of the public (aged 16 years and older) to investigate their attitudes to uses of health technologies and data, and the key factors affecting their views. Our earlier publication based on this survey reported on attitudes specifically towards virtual wards.
• Overall, the public thinks technology improves the quality of health care and is supportive of its many possible uses. But not all technologies are equally liked: those that empower people to manage their health and better connect them with the NHS seem to be more popular, while those that could be seen to ‘come between’ the clinician and patient – like chatbots or care robots – are least popular.

Read the Report – Exploring public attitudes towards the use of digital health technologies and data

Algorithms as good as doctors at predicting death in advanced cancer

NIHR | April  2021 | Algorithms as good as doctors at predicting death in advanced cancer

This Alert from the NIHR looks at two pieces of research funded by NIHR, and led by Marie Curie Palliative Care Research Department at University College London (UCL), whihc compared five digital prognosis tools clinician judgement in over 1 800 adults with incurable cancer in England and Wales. The experts conducted interviews with 29 patients who had recently been referred to community, hopsital and hospice palliative care services, 20 caregivers and 32 clinicians.

Both papers, now published in PLoS One report that algorithms can be as accurate as clinicians’ judgements for predicting how long terminally ill people with advanced cancer have left to live.  at least two of the studied algorithms were equally as good as the combined judgement of an experienced doctor and nurse in predicting whether patients would live for days, weeks or months.

The lead researcher- Professor Paddy Stone, from the Marie Curie Palliative Care Research Department at UCL- explained that although the best algorithms were as accurate as expert clinician judgement, the overall accuracy was only just over 60 per cent. The research concludes that while prognosis algorithms are currently no more accurate than clinicians’ judgments they may be helpful in other ways such as providing a supplementary second opinion or helping less experienced staff navigate difficult conversations with patients and their loved ones about their prognosis and end of life plans.

Professor Stone explained how important and valuable an accurate prognosis is for a terminally ill patient’s care: “ Knowing whether one only has days, weeks or a few short months remaining can help prepare for the end of life and to focus on achieving the best possible quality of life.  (Source: NIHR).

NIHR Algorithms as good as doctors at predicting death in advanced cancer

Primary papers

Prognostic tools or clinical predictions: Which are better in palliative care?

The Prognosis in Palliative care Study II (PiPS2): A prospective observational validation study of a prognostic tool with an embedded qualitative evaluation

New app developed to support patients during and following cancer treatment

County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust | July 2020| My Wellbeing Space – New App

The app, My Wellbeing Space, is a free digital service from NHS partnership Health Call and technology provider Inhealthcare and funded by the Northern Cancer Alliance. It will initially benefit patients receiving care from County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust. The content was developed by the Macmillan project team in collaboration with clinical teams and involving patients at all stages of its design and testing.

The My Wellbeing Space app can benefit patients at any stage of their treatment by providing advice and links with content including advice and links to information about: physical activity, late effects of treatment, food and nutrition, financial concerns, fatigue, emotional wellbeing and treatments.  It also includes short video clips delivered by a consultant, clinical nurse specialist, wellbeing practitioners, GP, oncologist, a patient and carer.  Patients will be given access to the app during their treatment (Source: County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust). 

Further details from County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust

NHSX: digital experts will be part of cancer and mental health teams

Department of Health and Social Care | April 2019 | NHSX: digital experts will be part of cancer and mental health teams

A news story from the Department of Health and Social Care outlines how digital and data specialists will help patients, clinicians and carers benefit from better technology. 

Digital and data specialists from NHSX will team up with NHS England’s cancer and mental health national policy teams to help clinicians and policymakers improve patient experience through technology.

The digital experts will support teams in:

• making it easier for patients to access services through smartphones
• giving clinicians access to the relevant diagnostic information about a patient
• making it easier to collect and use health data which can benefit research and patients

If this is successful it will be rolled out more widely across the NHS.

Read the full news story from the Department of Health and Social Care

Breast Cancer Care launches Alexa tool to help women spot key signs

Breast Cancer Care (BCC) has launched a virtual tool on Amazon’s Alexa which shares information on the signs and symptoms of breast cancer | via Digital Health

The tool can help guide women through a breast check and highlight the eight most common signs and symptoms of breast cancer to look out for.

Addie Mitchell, clinical nurse specialist at BCC, told Digital Health News that she hoped the digital tool would help give women more confidence to check for breast cancer. She said: “It gives them the confidence and assurance of being able to check in their own home. Checking for symptoms of breast cancer can cause a lot of anxiety as they don’t know what to look for, but the Alexa tool can help by listing the eight common ones.”

Mitchell added that the Alexa tool will also prompt users who may think they have one or more of the symptoms to get it checked out by their GP.

Full story at Digital Health

Social media boost for breast screening

More women attend for breast screening thanks to success of digital inclusion project | NHS Digital

An NHS project using social media to improve health by boosting digital inclusion has led to a 13 per cent increase in first time attendances for breast screening in Stoke-on-Trent over four years.

The local initiative saw information about screening posted on Facebook community groups, which empowered and enabled women to make appointments by reducing their anxiety around breast examinations. It also allowed them to communicate quickly and easily with health practitioners to ask questions about the screening process.

Through this project, the North Midlands Breast Screening Service promoted their Facebook page on local community groups which their target group – women aged over 50 – regularly visited.

The screening team posted information such as patients explaining about how the screening process works and how it has affected them, and videos showing the rooms where it takes place. Posts were designed to encourage women to share them and so spread the message about the benefits and importance of screening.

The service’s Facebook page also answered questions in the group and by direct messaging, enabling women to book appointments more easily.

Full detail: More women attend for breast screening thanks to success of digital inclusion project | NHS Digital

See also: Social media could help raise breast screening take-up | OnMedica

Cancer app developed by GPs being trialled by CCGs

A GP-developed app aiming to help GPs navigate the tests and urgent referrals necessary for patients presenting with cancer symptoms is being trialled by two CCGs | Pulse

C the Signs was co-founded by newly qualified GP Dr Bhavagaya Bakshi and fellow doctor Miles Payling and quickly checks symptoms of more than 200 cancers against multiple diagnostic referral pathways.

Last week the app won the People’s award at the Tech4Good awards and is now set to be trialled with GPs in the East of England to test its real world cost and clinical effectiveness.

Read the full news story here

Computer-tailored physical activity intervention for prostate and colorectal cancer patients and survivors

Cancer and cancer treatment coincide with substantial negative physical, psychological and psychosocial problems | BMC Cancer

Background: Physical activity (PA) can positively affect the negative effects of cancer and cancer treatment and thereby increase quality of life in CPS. Nevertheless, only a minority of CPS meet PA guidelines. We developed the OncoActive (OncoActief in Dutch) intervention: a computer-tailored PA program to stimulate PA in prostate and colorectal CPS, because to our knowledge there are only a few PA interventions for these specific cancer types in the Netherlands

Discussion: Using the Intervention Mapping protocol resulted in a systematically adapted, theory and evidence-based intervention providing tailored PA advice to prostate and colorectal CPS. If the intervention turns out to be effective in increasing PA, as evaluated in a RCT, possibilities for nationwide implementation and extension to other cancer types will be explored.

Full reference: Golsteijn, R.H.J. et al. (2017) Development of a computer-tailored physical activity intervention for prostate and colorectal cancer patients and survivors: OncoActive. BMC Cancer. 17:446

Breast cancer e-support program vs routine care

Zhu, J. et al. (2017) BMC Cancer. 17:291

Background: Women with breast cancer undergoing chemotherapy suffer from a number of symptoms and report receiving inadequate support from health care professionals. Innovative and easily accessible interventions are lacking. Breast Cancer e-Support is a mobile Application program (App) that provides patients with individually tailored information and a support group of peers and health care professionals. Breast Cancer e-Support aims to promote women’s self-efficacy, social support and symptom management, thus improving their quality of life and psychological well-being.

Discussion: This is the first study of its kind in China to evaluate the use of a mobile application intervention with a rigorous research design and theoretical framework. This study will contribute to evidence regarding the effectiveness of a theory-based mobile application to support women with breast cancer undergoing chemotherapy. The results should provide a better understanding of the role of self-efficacy and social support in reducing symptom distress and of the credibility of using a theoretical framework to develop internet-based interventions. The results will provide evidence to support the implementation of an innovative and easily accessible intervention that enhances health outcomes.

Read the full protocol here

7 innovative bits of research tech our Cancer Research U are developing

Today is Innovation Day, so CRUK are taking a look at some of the cutting edge technologies that their researchers are using in their efforts to understand and treat cancer | CRUK

• iKnife: an ‘intelligent knife’ to spot cancerous tissue during surgery
• Blood tests to monitor and personalise treatment

• Nanobubbles to re-oxygenate tumours
• Gold nanoparticles
• Infra-red endoscopes to detect cancer earlier
• Gene editing to boost immunotherapies
• New imaging technologies

Read the full blog post here