Meet the Innovation Fellows

As well as being a Consultant Stroke Physician across NHS Lothian and NHS Borders at the time of appointment, (now NHS Lothian only) Yvonne is also an Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer at the Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences, University of Edinburgh.

Yvonne’s project entitled ‘Care Calendar’ provided an opportunity to work with key stakeholders and Pogo Digital Healthcare to test/develop a prototype solution for multiple problems through its technological co-development, combining robust clinical testing and iterative design to ensure Care Calendar achieved its full capabilities

Care Calendar is an interactive digital calendar designed to enable clinical teams to plan, prompt, deliver, record, and monitor care events along the patient journey, both in the hospital and in the community. Care pathways can be programmed by clinicians and tailored to their specialty or the individual patient. Staff can feel confident that the right care is delivered at the right time, every time. Real-time data will help clinical managers predict discharges, plan elective admissions and staffing efficiently. Patients will be empowered in their own healthcare journey via the patient interface.

As an Advanced Practice Physiotherapist, Joyce has worked in a variety of clinical roles within NHS Fife HSCP, including 15 years in Community Paediatrics, specialising in MSK and Respiratory roles. However, in the past 7 years, Joyce has found that her passion lies in the speciality of Paediatric Orthopaedics and Leads the Fife wide Baby Hip surveillance service, based in Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy.

As an experienced clinician Joyce is committed to delivering the principles of Realistic Medicine and Value based health and care.

Joyce is leading on an innovation project which aims to enhance diagnostic capabilities, improve patient outcomes, as well as develop efficient, effective clinical pathways which are not only sustainable but fit for the future needs of our population.

NHS Fife’s Baby Hip Surveillance Service has developed a relationship with MEDO AI who have created MEDO Hip – ARIA (Automated Real time Intelligent Assistant) an AI augmented 3D ultrasound platform and are also developing a POC handheld Ultrasound assessment tool that would allow novice users to capture best images. The portable AI powered ultrasound system aims to deliver image diagnostics under 1 minute.

As part of the Fellowship, Rishi worked on a project entitled ‘Catching it Early: Artificial Intelligence and Cancer Diagnostics’.

Artificial intelligence within medical imaging is an exciting and fast-paced area of innovation and has the potential to revolutionise healthcare diagnostics. However, much more work and study are needed to ensure that AI tools are effective and safe to use in radiology. This project mainly focused on using AI in cancer imaging.

Two areas of development which are particularly exciting and innovative in Rishi’s work are in how we can utilise machine learning to detect lung cancer earlier and how we can use machine learning and radiomic analysis to personalise cancer treatments for patients.

A funding application submitted by NHS Lothian, NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde and the Usher Institute at the University of Edinburgh, then went on to be successful for the project entitled ‘Accelerating trustworthy AI in radiology: scalable software for clinical users to independently validate commercial products at local sites.’ Innovate UK awarded a £1.2M grant as part of the ‘Accelerating trustworthy AI: Phase 2 Collaborative R&D’ competition. The proposal looks at a radical and novel innovative solution that will allow healthcare providers and hospitals to rapidly evaluate and test radiology AI products independently, and at a fracture of the cost of current evaluation frameworks.

Claire was awarded a place on Cohort 2 of CSO Innovation Academic Fellowship which was targeted at clinicians early in their career to undertake a higher degree (MD or PhD) designed to develop future innovation leaders within the NHS.

Claire’s PhD project entitled ‘Utilising Routine Data and Digitally-Enabled Care to provide regional identification, triage, and management optimisation for COPD’, builds on the existing COPD Innovation portfolio in NHS Lothian.

This great work led by Claire and Midlothian’s Community Respiratory Team is helping to reduce admissions and make a difference to patients. We are delighted that this work was broadcast by the BBC as they dramatically reduce hospital stays and free up NHS beds for other patients.