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Gwent Care Providers Collaborate on a fully funded PainChek Pilot

0​5 August 2022

PainChek, the world’s first artificial intelligence (AI)-powered pain assessment tool, has been supported by Life Sciences Hub Wales in receiving funding from the Gwent Regional Partnership Board via its Technology Enabled Care Programme. Funding will support a 12-month pilot in care environments such as residential, nursing, and palliative care homes, across Gwent.
Care homes providing dementia, palliative, complex and learning disabilities care can apply to take part in the programme.
The programme is headed up by Life Sciences Hub Wales, which is an arm’s length body of Welsh Government and acts as a catalyst for innovation and collaboration between industry, health, social care, and academia, with the aim of making a positive difference to people, families, and businesses across the country.
PainChek’s Tandeep Gill explains the aims of pilot include gathering a 12-month evaluation of the use and impacts of the app-based medical device: “From our discussions with care homes, it is abundantly clear they place pain management as a high priority, however, the tools currently used are sub-optimal.
“Using PainChek in a range of residential and nursing care homes across Gwent means we will be able to support them in improving management of pain for their residents. This will deliver immediate benefits including an increase in the number and accuracy of assessments conducted at the point of care. This can lead to better decision making from MDTs that is shown to reduce the prescribing of anti-psychotic medication, support one-to-one care requirements and hospital admissions, and inform improvements to dietary and nutritional strategies.
“The agreement to fund the pilot is excellent news for the local and regional care sector, as well as great recognition of the significant role that PainChek can play in achieving effective management of pain in numerous care and nursing settings. We see this programme as the first step in rolling-out PainChek across Wales,” he adds. “Life Sciences Hub Wales helps to accelerate the development and adoption of innovative solutions that support the health and social care needs of Wales, and we are delighted to be working with them.”
Aimee Twinberrow is Project Lead within Life Sciences Hub Wales and focuses on healthier ageing and the use of AI, digital and robotics to support innovation in Health and Social Care. Of Life Sciences Hub Wales’ role in the programme and how it could help improve quality of care, she explains:
“Life Science Hub Wales is delighted to be partnering with PainChek to help support nurses and care staff with making decisions about pain medication, with this project providing an initial evaluation to support its wider roll out and adoption across Health and social care in Wales. Technology like this can help to better manage pain levels and therefore play an important role in improving the overall quality of life and outcomes for people.”
On average, 70% of residential and care home residents have a form of cognitive impairment such as dementia, with on average 50% of these experiencing chronic or acute pain at any given time.
“This is a problem that is currently not well addressed, and yet dementia prevalence is on the increase and set to double in 20 years,” comments Tandeep. “
The benefits of good pain management within health and social care, are numerous, but the sector currently relies on historic tools. These are cumbersome to use, particularly with people unable to communicate their needs, and pain assessments are subjective, and may be inaccurate and inconsistent.
“PainChek and its AI-driven data, results, reporting and information is the key to identifying and accurately measuring the ‘pain burden’ to ensure improved quality of life for residents.”
To access PainChek licenses, contact: aimee.twinberrow@lshubwales.comand/or tandeep.gill@painchek.com
To find out more about PainChek please visit: https://painchek.com/uk/
Captions for images provided in support of this press release:
Aimee Twinberrow is Project Lead within the Life Sciences Hub Wales.
Tandeep Gill, PainChek.
Notes to editors:
Issued for and on behalf of PainChek® by V Formation Limited. All press enquiries or for more information, contact: Diane Wood: diane@vformation.biz / 07887 794507, or Lucy Wharton: e: Lucy@vformation.biz / 07761 492802.
About PainChek UK
PainChek® is the world’s first AI-powered pain assessment tool. It is a secure medical device for use on mobile phones and tablets and uses artificial intelligence (facial detection and analysis technology) and smart automation to detect and score pain in real time.
The PainChek® Pain Assessment System facilitates integration with electronic medical records and automatic updates of pain results.
PainChek® is the only regulatory-cleared pain assessment technology for mobile devices for care homes and has regulatory clearance in Europe and Australia.
Pain often goes un-detected and under-treated in people with communication difficulties from medical conditions, such as dementia. Up to 80% of people in aged care experience chronic pain. Their carers have a multitude of tasks and responsibilities, and PainChek® represents a quick, easy to use solution to measuring pain in residents, documenting checks, and allowing informed clinical decisions around appropriate and effective pain management to be made.
Accurate pain assessment is the cornerstone of optimal pain management. PainChek® offers significant advantages over current pain assessment methods, and provides carers across multiple clinical areas with three important new clinical benefits:
The ability to identify the presence of pain when pain isn’t obvious;
To quantify the severity level of pain when pain is obvious, and,
To monitor the impact of treatment to optimise overall care.
As PainChek® is a multidimensional pain assessment tool, it also provides a picture (profile) of how the pain is affecting the patient’s behaviour.
Clinical studies conducted in Australian, and UK residential aged care centres have been published in various peer reviewed journals including Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. Another recently published article in BMC Geriatrics also indicates that PainChek® is a valid and reliable instrument to assess the presence and severity of pain in people with moderate-to-severe dementia living in aged care in the UK. Further information on clinical studies can be found here.
PainChek® has received federal government support in Australia through a funded implementation programme which more than 60% of aged care facilities have signed up to. PainChek is also used in aged care facilities in the UK, Singapore, and New Zealand. In 2019, PainChek won the ‘Tech for an Aging Society’ Award in Australia’s UK Tech Rocketship Awards.
The PainChek® pain assessment system has an open API, allowing the integration of PainChek® with patient management systems, which allows real-time recording of pain assessments into residents’ medical records, and sharing of those results with other healthcare practitioners.
PainChek®’s vision is to give a voice to those that cannot verbalise their pain.
On World Alzheimer’s Day 2020 (21 September), PainChek® published a white paper: ‘Pain and dementia: common challenges for care managers,’ which investigates the complex relationship between pain and dementia, examines how pain affects the behaviour of people living with dementia, and the main issues with assessing pain and how these can be overcome. To download the free report, click here.
PainChek® is available on the Apple App Store and Google Play and can be operated - subject to a user enterprise licence - via any compatible smart device at the point of care. For further information, visit: https://painchek.com/uk/
About Life Sciences Hub Wales :
Life Sciences Hub Wales aims to make Wales the place of choice for health, care and wellbeing innovation. We help to advance innovation and create meaningful collaboration between industry, health, social care, government, and research organisations.
accelerating the development and adoption of innovative solutions that support the health and social care needs of Wales, and;
partnering with industry to advance economic improvement across the life sciences sector and drive business growth and jobs in Wales.
We want to help transform both the health and economic wellbeing of the nation:
We do this by working closely with health and social care colleagues to understand the challenges and pressures an organisation may face. Once identified, we then work with industry to help source and support the development of innovative solutions to respond to these challenges with agility.
Our team provides bespoke advice, signposting and support to accelerate all innovation journeys, whether supporting a clinician with a bright idea or a multinational life sciences organisation.
Life Sciences Hub Wales helps to catalyse system-wide change by convening and orchestrating a cross-sector innovation ecosystem. These connections enable us to create valuable networking and matchmaking opportunities.
To find out more, visit: www.lshubwales.com
To improve health and wellbeing outcomes and reduce inequalities in the region.
To improve care, treatment, and support, ensuring people have more say and greater control.
To provide information and advice, to help people sustain good health & well-being.
To provide co-ordinated, person-centred care, treatment, and support.
To make more effective use of resources, skills, and expertise.
To align or integrate functions and resources, where integration adds value to citizens.
About the Gwent Regional Partnership Board
The Greater Gwent Health, Social Care and Well-being Partnership Board is a key partnership body; established to lead and guide the implementation of the Social Services and Well Being (Wales) Act 2014 in the Greater Gwent area (covering the areas of Blaenau Gwent, Caerphilly, Monmouthshire, Newport, and Torfaen), sitting within the footprint of the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board area. The priorities of the RPB are:
To find out more, visit: www.gwentrpb.wales

 

 

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