HealthTracker™ for patients, clinician & researchers

Professor Paramala Santosh, CEO of HealthTracker Ltd, co-developed the HealthTracker™ platform – developed by clinicians, assisted by patients for patients, clinicians & researchers, more of which we learn about here

Professor Paramala Santosh is the CEO of HealthTracker Ltd, and an internationally recognised clinician and researcher with expertise in digital health and informatics. He co-developed the HealthTracker™ platform which allows automated triaging, improves assessment, monitoring and delivery of clinical care in chronic illness. HealthTracker Ltd is a spin-off small-medium enterprise (SME) with the NHS receiving royalties.

HealthTracker™ – Our story

HealthTracker™ puts technology into action in capturing clinical and research patient-centred information and leverages data to encourage positive changes in health, social care and education, of chronic illness. Our experience over the last ten years has taught us that many digital health tools fail because standard ‘off the shelf’ solutions might initially appeal, but rarely offer the customisation that clinical services and clinical trials require long-term. We pride ourselves on elegant, efficient bespoke solutions that can be provided in the least time.

Professor Paramala Santosh, a child and adolescent psychiatrist and Professor Paul Gringras, a neurodevelopmental and sleep paediatrician, founded HealthTracker™ as they were determined to change the lack of useful, usable online platforms that allowed longitudinal monitoring using validated clinical outcomes. A small pilot grant from Guy’s and St Thomas’ Charity in 2003 helped develop an early prototype, and HealthTracker™ was spun out in 2012 as HealthTracker Ltd, a SME and has since functioned with funds obtained through delivering research and clinical projects. The founders worked for Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust (GSTT) and Great Ormond Street Hospital NHS Trust (GOSH), and these two hospitals receive a revenue share. The company is looking for investment to expand.

HealthTracker Ltd team

The HealthTracker™ team is led by Professor Paramala Santosh as CEO. Dr Federico Fiori, a Computational Analyst and Psychologist, is the Chief Technical Officer and maintains oversight and assists in all of the IT developments. Dr Alfred Kolozsvari, a successful Dentist and Businessman, is the Chief Finance Officer and helps develop and maintain efficient business processes.

Unique features of HealthTracker™

• HealthTracker™ is unique in that it was developed by clinicians and researchers, with input from patients and families in order to solve real-life clinical issues that impact clinical care.
• HealthTracker™ is useful as an adjunct to information gathering, diagnostic clarification, symptom tracking, and teaching/reinforcing behaviours for patients with chronic illness.
• HealthTracker™ platform allows the design and delivery of bespoke digital clinical and research health solutions and can capture patient-reported outcomes in health, social care, education, clinical trials, and research settings.
• HealthTracker™ provides quick and simple solutions to capturing clinically relevant patient-, proxy-, and expert-reported clinical outcomes, observational patient outcomes, and value-based clinical outcomes.
• The HealthTracker™ leads the way in health informatics for mental health and paediatrics by profiling patients based on symptom clusters, by coupling questionnaire and observational data, to enhance patient care.
• It is a mature, validated, system that offers bespoke solutions in multiple languages and countries, especially in the era of remote healthcare delivery.
• HealthTracker™ focuses on reducing the burden to patients and their families, researchers and clinicians and achieve this by incorporating complex decision-making algorithms presented simply.
• HealthTracker™ uniquely has elegant, engaging, fully-animated clinical outcome measures that can be completed by individuals as young as or functioning like a four-year-old.
• HealthTracker™ uniquely has a validated online structured medication review, which has been independently tested and is ideal for use in the NHS England supported Stopping over medication of people with a learning disability, autism or both (STOMP) and the Supporting Treatment and Appropriate Medication in Paediatrics (STAMP) campaign.
• HealthTracker™ allows online completion of multi-source outcome information during clinical trials.
• HealthTracker™ has developed automated triaging and patient-clinician matching in chronic illness.
• Using flexible and scalable options including complex decision-making algorithms, HealthTracker™ can assist in generating automated mental and physical health alerts, which was especially useful during COVID-19.

Usability of the HealthTracker™ platform

• Two visiting clinicians have validated the use of the HealthTracker™ platform in the delivery of clinical care in the Centre for Interventional Paediatric Psychopharmacology and Rare Diseases (CIPPRD) and the Centre for Personalised Medicine in Rett Syndrome (CPMRS).
• HealthTracker™ has successfully delivered all the commissioned multi-speciality clinical and research projects.

HealthTracker™ functionality and commissioned projects

Clinical Physical and Mental Health Automated Alerts

• The HealthTracker™ platform’s capabilities were harnessed to generate automated mental and physical health alerts, which have especially proved useful during COVID-19 to identify those at risk and allowed clinical care to be provided when most needed in a timely fashion.
• The automated clinical alerts allow clinicians to contact patients proactively and deal with risk quickly, allowing better risk management.

Automated Triaging to Reduce Waiting Times in Child Mental Health and Automated Patient-Clinician Matching

• This functionality allows automated triaging for child mental health problems.
• We also have developed a patient-clinician matching that allows the clinician with the right skill set to be allocated to the right patient, based on the triaging.

Investigating Autism Mental Health (IAMHealth)

• HealthTracker™ platform gathered research data using bespoke instruments that were co-developed by individuals with autism spectrum disorders and their caregivers for this NIHR funded research programme.

HealthTracker-based Structured Medication Review (HSMR)

• The HealthTracker-based Structured Medication Review assists in reducing medication-induced side effects and improves clinical outcomes in patients with chronic disorders such as Autism Spectrum Disorders, Learning Disability, complex multi-morbidity, Rett Syndrome, etc. and can be used in any medical speciality.
• The HealthTracker™ assists in achieving rational medication prescribing alongside shared decision-making. Based on patient and clinician responses, it imputes a Modified Efficacy Index (MEI) as the ratio between the therapeutic benefit of medication and the presence and severity of side-effects. The MEI is displayed in a colour-coded matrix that allows clinicians to see how the patient has responded to treatment and may act as a stimulus for discussion between the clinician and the patient and/or carer.
• The HealthTracker-based Structured Medication Review has been independently evaluated as part of an NIHR fellowship and has shown that HealthTracker™ is easily usable in adult clinics dealing with a learning disability or ASD with mental illness and that clinical contacts were aided by clinicians stating that it had helped improve clinical decision-making.
• The HealthTracker-based Structured Medication Review is ideally placed to meet the needs of the NHS England supported Stopping over medication of people with a learning disability, autism or both (STOMP) and the Supporting Treatment and Appropriate Medication in Paediatrics (STAMP) campaign.

Suicidality: Treatment Occurring in Paediatrics (STOP):

• The HealthTracker™ platform was used to deliver this EU funded project completed across six countries, and was used as an exemplar by NICE.
• We developed the STOP ‘Suicidality Suite of Instruments,’ on the HealthTracker™ platform for the assessment and monitoring of suicidality and its mediators, and demonstrated that it could be used effectively in evaluating suicidality in young people with physical illness, mental illness and those from the general population.
• The findings from analysing the data using machine learning for suicidal-behavioural-risk-prediction in young people was implemented into the HealthTracker™ platform, and it now has the potential to improve the prediction of suicidal behaviours.

Managing the Link and Strengthening Transition from Child to Adult Mental Health Care (MILESTONE) study:

• HealthTracker™ was used to develop bespoke instruments focusing on the transition of young people from child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) to adult mental health services (AHMS) within this EU funded project across seven EU countries.
• These instruments offered a more purposeful approach to the transition from CAMHS to AMHS and allowed healthcare professionals to be better placed to decide a discharge or transition from CAMHS.

Paediatric-UK-Demyelinating-Disease-Longitudinal-Study (PUDDLS):

• HealthTracker™ platform has successfully delivered collection of data longitudinally that aimed to determine the natural history, predictors and outcomes of childhood multiple sclerosis.

Tailored Rett Intervention and Assessment Longitudinal (TRIAL) database for Rare Diseases:

• HealthTracker™ platform has recently developed a live longitudinal data-capture in Rett Syndrome in the UK.
• The TRIAL database has already provided new insights into how to personalise treatment in patients with Rett Syndrome.
• The database allows scaling up from ‘n=1 trials’, to more extensive clinical trials, and the ongoing live data monitoring has allowed clinicians to manage patient’s symptoms better.

Apart from the above, the HealthTracker™ platform has also been used to assess and manage Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, profile complex neurodisability, multi-morbidity, and track the quality of life and survival in paediatric neuro-epithelial tumours.

Conclusion

The HealthTracker™ platform is multi-functional and can be used to harness clinical and research patient-centred data to encourage positive changes in the health, education, and social care of patients with chronic illness.

The HealthTracker™ can provide automated screening, triaging, patient-clinician matching, automated clinical risk alerts, track treatment response, and help personalise and manage patients in clinical, educational, social care, and research settings.

This multi-modal HealthTracker™ platform offers a unique perspective into personalised medicine and patient care and is looking for investment to grow the platform further, to significantly impact care across health, social care, education and research settings.

 

Please note: This is a commercial profile