Smith+Nephew and Huma develop remote patient monitoring app to assist the safe restart of UK orthopaedic surgery

Smith+Nephew (LSE: SN, NYSE: SNN), the global medical technology business, and Huma, the global digital health company, today announce the launch of their remote patient monitoring app for orthopaedic surgery.

There are an estimated 250,000^[i] patients on waiting lists for orthopaedic operations due to COVID-19, with UK surgery running at 50%^[ii] of usual capacity. To restart safe surgery, Smith+Nephew and Huma have developed a way for surgeons to better prepare their patients ahead of operations, through remote patient monitoring. Previous work^[iii] has shown the positive impact that better preparation can have on patients, such as reducing recovery time, and digital services like this can offer timely, tailored information and reminders to help patients be prepared. 

Smith+Nephew have provided the orthopaedic expertise, and Huma the digital technology to create an app which will assist in the management of patients undergoing knee and hip replacement surgery. Patients receive pre-surgery guidance, access virtual rehabilitation resources and can have video calls with their surgical team, whilst clinicians can monitor how patients are recovering and use health data to check patients will be well enough for surgery. Importantly, a COVID-19 symptom tracker checks for self-reported signs of infection before being admitted to hospital and after discharge, giving reassurance to patients and staff.

Professor Edward Davis, Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon at Ramsay West Midlands Hospital and The Royal Orthopaedic Hospital, added, “In many hospitals around the country, we are facing a backlog of patients. They are often older, in pain and with a severely impacted quality of life. The use of this smart technology enables surgical centres to support patients through treatment, given the considerable constraints of operating and seeing patients during a pandemic.”

In the short-term, the app is expected to help more patients access elective joint replacement surgery safely.  In the future, the application of artificial intelligence to the data collected may lead to further improvements in surgical decision making and outcomes.

Simon Tarry, Managing Director, UK, Ireland & Nordics at Smith+Nephew commented, “The app is a major development which we believe will make an immediate impact on the surgical landscape. Partnering with Huma, we have created a sophisticated app which allows Smith+Nephew to support an end-to-end platform and solution around the prosthesis itself. In the short-term, the app will support our mission to get patients back into surgery safely during the pandemic, but the longer-term capabilities of the app could transform how surgeons and patients manage their surgical pathways in the future.”

Elizabeth Wood, knee replacement patient who has trialled the app says, “I got great comfort having the app – it’s like having your very own digital doctor at home! Throughout my journey, it kept me on track with my rehab and made me feel incredibly connected, despite the obvious challenge of COVID.”

The app is currently being piloted by surgeons and patients across several UK hospitals, with immediate plans to roll it out to a further ten NHS and private hospitals in the coming weeks.

To learn more about the Smith+Nephew patient app, visit: https://info.huma.com/periop-solution

Enquiries

About Smith+Nephew

Smith+Nephew is a portfolio medical technology business that exists to restore people’s bodies and their self-belief by using technology to take the limits off living. We call this purpose ‘Life Unlimited’. Our 17,500+ employees deliver this mission every day, making a difference to patients’ lives through the excellence of our product portfolio, and the invention and application of new technologies across our three global franchises of Orthopaedics, Advanced Wound Management and Sports Medicine & ENT.

Founded in Hull, UK, in 1856, we now operate in more than 100 countries, and generated annual sales of $5.1 billion in 2019. Smith+Nephew is a constituent of the FTSE100 (LSE:SN, NYSE:SNN). The terms ‘Group’ and ‘Smith+Nephew’ are used to refer to Smith & Nephew plc and its consolidated subsidiaries, unless the context requires otherwise.

For more information about Smith+Nephew, please visit www.smith-nephew.com and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram or Facebook.

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About Huma

Huma is a global health technology company that exists to help people live longer, fuller lives. We use digital biomarkers, predictive algorithms and real-world data from continuous patient monitoring using mobile devices to create hospitals at home and virtual clinical trials.

Our ‘hospitals at home’ help care for Covid-19 patients across the UK’s NHS, Germany, and the UAE — evidence shows they can double clinical capacity, reduce readmission rates by a third, and reduce costs whilst providing safe, high-quality care. We offer Covid-19 digital services, not-for-profit, to national governments in support of the fight against the pandemic and have shipped over a million devices that compliment our ‘hospitals at home’ to help power them. We are using this same technology platform to support Covid-19 vaccine initiatives and research projects in the US and EU. www.huma.com

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