30 practices to be given CVD prevention digital system – register your interest

30 practices to be given CVD prevention digital system – register your interest

Healum invites expressions of interest from any practices in South London that want to enable their staff members to collaboratively provide self management support to patients identified at risk of CVD through the Healum software and app. Healum has secured central NHS funding for 30 practices in South London to use its product for 1 year.


Who is Healum?


Healum is a company that provides software, systems and connected patient facing apps. Their products are interoperable with EMIS and they are designed for staff working in GP Practices who want to work together to empower patients at risk of CVD to take responsibility for making healthy choices and learning about their health.


Why has this project been funded?


The contract has been awarded by the Accelerated Access Collaborative (AAC), which is a partnership between patient groups, government bodies, industry and the NHS, hosted by NHS England through SBRI Healthcare. It marks a renewed focus on tackling CVD through improving current prevention strategies through the use of data and personalised approaches and in empowering patients to manage their own conditions through targeted engagement and support.


What will be the benefits of this project for your practice?


Healthcare professionals, who are using Healum’s care planning software and the connected mobile app, will benefit from the ability to reduce the pressure on their workforce, empower their patients and improve health outcomes by collaboratively creating personalised care-plans with patients that are identified at risk of cardiovascular disease. The care plans are linked to the GP health record and combine clinical and non-clinical recommendations as part of a shared decision-making process that involves staff from across each practice, including GPs, nurses, pharmacists, healthcare assistants, health and wellbeing coaches and social prescribing link workers.  


Patients at risk of cardiovascular disease will be able to conveniently access their personalised plan of care and support from their GP practice through a mobile app that enables them to proactively manage their health through daily actions, educational articles and videos, and information on services in their community.


What will your practice be able to use the Healum’s software and app for?


  • Quickly assemble educational videos, articles, recipes, daily actions and community based services to patients at risk of CVD in less than a minute from the content library that patients can then access on the Healum mobile app
  • Upload and manage a content and local services directory database from your practice, the local council and trusted sources such as NHS choices that can be shared at the click of a button, including content in a range of languages to include all your patients, regardless of ethnicity
  • Enable different staff members to collaboratively create personalised plans of care and support for patients 
  • Provide patients with useful resources and plans following any NHS health check that they can put into practice in their day-to-day lives through the Healum app
  • View patients’ tracking of their health, their daily habits and their engagement with any of the educational material and content in the mobile app
  • Use these tools for as many of your patients as you would like as there is no patient limit


What has been the evidence so far?


Randomised control trials conducted in Cheshire have found that Healum has been shown to improve HbA1c in patients with Type 2 Diabetes by 9% compared to 2% in the control group receiving normal care. Service evaluations across the country have shown improvements in quality of life and patient engagement.

The AAC has awarded a small number of contracts to the most innovative companies in the UK that can have the biggest real-world impact within the NHS system for cardiovascular disease. 


What happens for those practices accepted?


For any practices who sign up and are selected to receive Healum’s patient management system for the next year, the steps are as follows:

  1. Complete a simple onboarding form to answer some discovery questions on what new features you would like to see developed in the future, and why these would be useful for your practice/your HCP role.
  2. Sign the contract and data sharing agreement, including an opt in or out of the live learning network. Once the agreement is signed, activate the share agreement with ‘Care Planning Healum’ on EMIS.
  3. Collate and provide any local content you want added to the content library, e.g. local services that you can share with your CVD patients as part of a care plan.
  4. Receive training delivered by Healum, for any of the CVD team using the software (GPs, nurses, link workers).
  5. Deliver care & support planning in F2F or remote patient appointments using the software. Collect patient consent to be shared app access, in order for patients to receive shared resources as part of their care plan and self-management tools.
  6. Fill in a feedback survey after 2 or 3 months of use to allow Healum to understand the usability and usefulness the product for each HCP, and any suggestions for improvement.


What support can you access when using Healum as part of the project?


The team at Healum will train any relevant team members in your practice and will upload any content that you want in the software. This content will be in addition to a library of content that Healum has already curated, including a range of articles, videos and recipes suitable for patients at risk of CVD. The team at Healum will help chosen practices to make the most of the Healum software and patient facing app, and will tailor the product for what each practice needs, and provide ongoing support during your time using the product. Real-world results and feedback will be shared as examples of best practice in using digital solutions to manage and prevent CVD, and Healum will invite chosen practices to be part of its research consortium that has been successful in attracting over £2m in funding to date for evaluating technologies in primary care.  


For ongoing support during your time using the product, a customer support email will be provided for any technical product issues, this can be given to patients experiencing issues for them to contact directly. You will be able to have regular contact with Alice, our Customer Success Manager, who you can go to for any product support, training, new feature requests or to give general feedback.


What happens next if you are interested?


If you would like to register your interest for your practice to join, just click the button below or email Alice Holden at [email protected]. There are no additional / hidden costs to use the system. The costs are covered as part of the project funding. Healum intends to hold a series of meetings for interested practices throughout February and March and will make final selection by the end of March.


It is possible for multiple practices within one PCN to join, but each practice will require a separate license and contract.