The East Midlands Digital Health Accelerator is a support programme for a small number of Digital Health innovators who we believe have an exciting and worthwhile innovation that can make a real difference to our health and care system.
We selected three companies for our 2019-20 cohort who over the next year will receive support from EMAHSN experts to further the spread and adoption of their innovations.
Here Michael-Morgan Curran, Commercial and Clinical Development Officer gives an overview of MyCognition, their experience of navigating the NHS and how they feel the East Midlands Digital Health Accelerator will help with the adoption and spread of their innovation.
MyCognition and our Innovation
MyCognition is a Research and Design MedTech business dedicated to understanding, tracking and strengthening cognitive fitness through digital technology.
The MyCognitionPRO app enables people to monitor and improve their cognitive functioning, strengthen their mental resilience and increase their productivity. The app provides healthcare organisations with welcomed innovative technology to better manage patients in less expensive clinical and care settings such as community care and their own homes.
Our technology is regulated by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and is a CE marked, Class 1a Medical Device. It is also approved by NHS Digital and ORCHA, for use in clinical care settings to measure and improve cognitive functioning. You can learn more from our website or have look at our video.
MyCognition began in response to emerging evidence linking cognitive functioning to people’s ability to self-manage their physical and mental health. Declining cognitive fitness is part of the ageing process affecting people’s ability to live independently and impacting health and societal costs. It starts as early as 45 and is the main risk factor for people presenting to primary care with anxiety and depression.
Research recognises the incidence and impact of cognitive impairment in people with chronic conditions. Published data indicates that over 55% of people with diabetes have poor cognition that impacts their ability to self-manage, be compliant with treatment and therapy plans. For the clinician and payer, poor cognition results in poorer health and faster disease progression, missed appointments, frequent presentation and increased costs.
MyCognition exists to improve health and care outcomes in long-term conditions, and is aligned with the NHS objectives in 2019's Prevention Strategy and NHS Long Term Plan helping people improve their cognitive health, build their mental resilience, improve their self-management and experience a higher quality of life for longer.
East Midlands Digital Health Accelerator and MyCognition
We’re looking forward to working with the East Midlands AHSN to help us spread the adoption of MyCognition in the NHS, especially in the East Midlands area, where we were already nurturing a number of projects and partnerships. We believe that the opportunity that the Accelerator provides in terms of expertise and links to key NHS decision-makers and influencers can help our company to rise to a different level.
With the support of the East Midland AHSN we aim to engage with clinical and procurement stakeholders in the East Midlands region to position MyCognitionPRO as platform and app to identify and treat cognitive impairment in people with long term conditions, including mental health. We’re also looking to find collaborators willing to support the 2020/2022. MyCognition Knowledge Transfer Partnership, with University of Northampton, to develop and test a version of MyCognitionPro for people with Mild Cognitive Impairment and Dementia.
Over the year ahead, we plan to participate in as many of the AHSN led opportunities as possible in order to promote MyCognition, get feedback to refine our value proposition and marketing materials, generate business leads and stimulate debate and thinking about the importance of cognitive impairment and its impact on physical and mental health. We’re also looking forward to working with the other members of the Accelerator as we can share our experiences and offer support to each other.
Our experience of navigating the NHS so far
The main challenge we are facing is to devise the right way to insert our innovation in the current care pathways. Not having an actual comparator in the current standards of care, adoption requires the collection of feasibility and health-economic data, which is time and cost consuming. Gathering evidence and seeking funding to sustain research has been the main barrier to the spread of MyCognition to the NHS in the past years, but we are now on that path. The next challenge will be a full integration between the existing technology and our platform.
Recent highlights for MyCognition
- Over 20,000 user cases across all ages, genders and different health condition
- Part of Greatest Manchester Diabetes My Way NHS Test Beds project
- Winner of Innovate UK Knowledge Transfer Partnership Programme in MCI and early Dementia with Northampton University
- Winner of Innovate UK funding
- Selected by NHSX for the report ‘Artificial Intelligence: How to get it right. Putting policy into practice for safe data-driven innovation in health and care’Selected by Microsoft to be part of their 2020 AI for Good programme
• 2020 funding extended for NHS London Good Thinking Programme
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Nick Brown – Commercial Manager at East Midlands AHSN says:
“MyCognition is such a great product and shows how HealthTech can be used in an inventive way to improve health outcomes in relation to long-term health conditions. The company are in a great position and this is a pivotal time for them to grow and spread their innovation within the East Midlands health and care system.”
Author
Michael-Morgan Curran, Commercial and Clinical Development Officer, MyCognition