Together for Health Equity community of practice
The team convenes a community of practice made up of people who share a common interest in tackling health inequalities and addressing health equity. It includes healthcare practitioners, academics, community leaders, patients and carers. Follow this link to find out more about how to get involved in this project delivered in partnership with Hexitime and the Health Foundation.
Healthy Hearts project
As part of Health Innovation Networks’ national focus on lipids management, we wanted to understand why heart health services are not as effective for some parts of our population. The project identified three groups as being at particular risk (Polish community, communities experiencing economic deprivation and the South Asian community). Working collaboratively with these communities and local public health colleagues, the CIWI team has improved the quality of dialogue and insight. Conversations are ongoing, with communities in Slough and Birmingham now working directly with public health colleagues to create solutions. Read a short case study about the Healthy Hearts project and our findings here.
Point-of-care test for detection of breast cancer spread
We are working with Oxford-based diagnostics start-up Seroxo on their clinical project funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), testing their LIT point-of-care test with breast cancer patients. The LIT test requires a small drop of blood from a finger prick and produces a result in ten minutes. These tell doctors how well a patient’s immune system is functioning, and can detect when a cancer patient’s disease has progressed to the metastatic stage. We were a co-applicant on this award, and are leading on the patient and public involvement PPI) work, ensuring all aspects of the research include the perspective of patients and the public.
Automated telemedicine – understanding patients’ trust and experience
An automated clinical assistant called Dora has been designed by Ufonia to improve and streamline care following routine cataract surgery. The team has tested this system with people who have a wide range of life experiences (including a partnership with My Life My Choice, an Oxfordshire-based charity for people with learning disabilities). This has provided useful feedback for the designers, including ideas for adaptations which they would find valuable. The system has potential to be used in lots of other situations too: for example, the team has tested it with people undergoing tests for head and neck cancer. Read more about Health Innovation Oxford and Thames Valley’s involvement in developing and evaluating this automated telemedicine initiative in this case study.