An estimated 89,600 people across Lancashire have an eating disorder and this figure is growing by 7% each year.
An estimated 89,600 people across Lancashire have an eating disorder and this figure is growing by 7% each year. With no single cause, these complex mental health conditions include bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, and anorexia nervosa, and can affect men and women of all ages.
Eating disorders can severely affect the quality of life of the sufferer and those that care for them and can shorten a person’s life. But with the right care, people can recover.
To provide the right support, Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust provides an eating disorder service, run from clinics across the region. The team includes specialist nurses, psychologists, dietitians, and therapists, offering a wide range of care.
The team hadn’t consistently used digital solutions as part of therapy but saw that patients were increasingly on digital media. When the Trust provided its staff with access to the ORCHA platform, the eating disorder team immediately saw the potential and now prescribes health apps to supplement and enhance its therapy.
Dr. Hannah Wilson, Clinical Psychologist, explains:
“The ORCHA platform includes in-depth evaluations of health apps, enabling the team to find safe and effective apps to help a patient and the tools to prescribe them. Before ORCHA I would have to spend at least a week using an app myself, to be clear on what I am asking of a client, and whilst I still now take a look, I don’t need to take as long and feel reassured it has been reviewed against the criteria that matter. I can’t try the thousands of apps out there and so it’s good to know that work has been done for me.
Also when a client shows me an app they have found, I check its ORCHA review and so can advise if they should continue to use it or if there is a more effective app for their need.”
One app the team has found particularly useful is Recovery Record. With meal logs, meal plans, coping skills, secure messages, data & charts, it provides valuable support to the patient, whilst building useful behavior information to review during appointments.
The team also prescribes Mindfulness apps such as Happier. Although they are not specific to an eating disorder, the app can be used to lift a patient’s mood, meditate, or capture happy moments; which can all help patients to stay positive.
On the contribution apps make to the practice, Dr. Wilson explains:
“For me, eating disorders are complex. An app by itself is unlikely to be enough to enable a patient to recover, but I have found that they support, supplement, and back up sessions. The apps enable patients to receive some support between appointments.
For example, they help people to more accurately monitor what we have asked them to, be it their mood or what they’ve eaten. People carry their phones everywhere and so are much more likely to simply and discretely make a note, rather than pull a piece of paper that could be spotted by others or lost. Apps can also provide a source of motivation to help patients keep to their treatment plans. Some also provide real practical assistance with meal planning.
Our clients of all ages use apps every day. If we can become part of that world, we can become more effective and sustainable. Apps also provide a great tool for patients to use long after they have been discharged from our service, to help maintain their progress and stay well.”
Source: https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/media-centre/eating-disorder-statistics
We have teamed up with the British Society for Lifestyle Medicine (BSLM) to provide an online platform for members to prescribe ‘apps’ to patients.
We have teamed up with the British Society for Lifestyle Medicine (BSLM) to provide an online platform for members to prescribe ‘apps’ to patients.
In their recent newsletter, Dr. Sohaib Imtiaz MPH wrote:
Digital health is advancing rapidly and patients are increasingly engaging with apps and using their smartphones to stay healthy. A health professional can’t be present all the time for patients and apps help empower patients to take charge of their own health. Many apps use the principles of gamification, tracking, and health promotion to enable patients to become healthier which over time enables behavior change. ORCHA has created a search engine for reviewed health apps that have been rated by their team after going through a robust process. The search engine allows you to search for an app based on keywords and demographic details with results featuring apps with different ratings for clinical effectiveness, data security, and the pro and cons. ORCHA has produced bslm.orcha.co.uk, which is tailored for the BSLM with a consistent theme and a focus on apps geared towards lifestyle medicine.
Signing up for a pro account allows you to ‘prescribe’ apps to your patients by sending a ‘link’ via messaging such as text or e-mail. Preventative medicine is going to increasingly rely on Digital therapeutics to help people stay healthy. Increasingly patients will want digital solutions and the ORCHA platform allows you to have a validated method of suggesting the best apps for their concerns. As the digital innovation director and an advocate of technology, I am excited about the potential this collaboration could bring for promoting lifestyle medicine.
Two innovative health products developed in Merseyside and Cheshire are among 11 selected to join the prestigious NHS Innovation Accelerator (NIA).
Two innovative health products developed in Merseyside and Cheshire are among 11 selected to join the prestigious NHS Innovation Accelerator (NIA).
The Accelerator is run by NHS England in partnership with Academic Health Science Networks – including the Innovation Agency, the AHSN for the North West Coast. The programme accelerates the uptake of high impact products throughout the NHS, providing a vital boost for innovators.
ORCHA provides a health app finder platform for health organisations and individuals, allowing easy and clear access to verified apps. The company began in Liverpool and recently moved to Sci-Tech Daresbury, near Warrington.
ORCHA Chief Executive Liz Ashall-Payne said: “We are delighted to be part of the National Innovation Accelerator and are excited to be able to scale up our work to deliver more health benefits across England.”
Also new to the Accelerator is Liverpool-based Damibu with their app CATCH – Common Approach To Children’s Health. This has been supported by the Innovation Agency, who are funding its use in maternity and children’s services in Cheshire and Merseyside.
The CATCH app gives parents appropriate and understandable information when they need it, via smartphone or tablet. Avoiding the inappropriate use of NHS services when self-care would be more appropriate.
Damibu Chief Executive Dave Burrows said: “The Damibu team are really excited about the possibilities that joining the NIA family has to offer. Damibu is already known within the North West for its health innovations, as shown by the NHS North West Excellence in Supply Award we won last month.
“Being selected for the NIA gives us a springboard to spread our innovations nationally. We intend to make the most of this unique opportunity.”
The Innovation Agency has supported both Damibu and Orcha to spread their innovations in the North West Coast. Innovation Agency Chief Executive Dr Liz Mear said: “I am absolutely delighted that two innovators in our region have been selected for this prestigious NHS programme. We have been supporting their teams for some time and I’m proud that we’ve been able to help them reach this stage; I’m sure they will now experience a boost in the spread of their innovations.”
Since it launched in July 2015, the NIA has supported the uptake and spread of 25 high-impact, evidence-based innovations across 799 NHS organisations.
Each of the new innovations joining the NIA in 2017 offer solutions to key challenges in primary care, urgent and emergency care and mental health. Their selection follows an international and robust selection process, including review by a collegiate of over 100 assessors and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).
Simon Stevens, NHS England Chief Executive said: “Modern medicine is on the cusp of a huge shift in how care is delivered, and practical innovations like these show how NHS patients will now directly benefit. More tests and patient monitoring will be done at home or on the move, without the need to pitch up to a doctor’s appointment or hospital outpatients.”
Ian Dodge, National Director for Strategy and Innovation at NHS England, said: “Since it started, the NHS Innovation Accelerator has continued to deliver for patients and the taxpayer. It’s just one of the ways that the NHS is getting its act together to provide practical help for innovators with the best ideas. From a small investment, we are already seeing very big benefits – safer care for patients, better value for taxpayers, new jobs created and export wins.”
The 11 innovations selected to join the NIA in 2017 are:
For more information about the NIA, visit www.nhsaccelerator.com.
About ORCHA
Founded by NHS clinicians, ORCHA is the world’s leading digital health evaluation and distribution organisation. We provide services to national health bodies across three continents, including the NHS in 50% of UK regions, delivering national accreditation frameworks, bespoke Digital Health Libraries, and professional recommendation tools, specific to the needs of our clients. ORCHA’s unique Review Engine assesses digital health solutions against more than 300 measures across Clinical/Professional Assurance, Data & Privacy, and Usability & Accessibility, plus additional criteria depending on needs.
See how ORCHA works
Discover how our services, including Reviews, Digital Health Libraries, and market intelligence reports, can work for your specific needs.
Search ORCHA’s App Library, featuring thousands of independent app reviews across a broad spectrum of health conditions. Every app is evaluated against more than 300 measures across Clinical/Professional Assurance, Data & Privacy, and Usability & Accessibility, making it easy for you to find the best apps for your needs.
Mobile-health offers many opportunities, however the ‘side-effects’ of health-apps are often unclear.
BACKGROUND: Mobile health offers many opportunities, however, the ‘side-effects’ of health apps are often unclear. With no guarantee that health apps first do no harm, their role as a viable, safe, and effective therapeutic option is limited.
OBJECTIVE: To assess the quality of apps for chronic insomnia disorder, available on the Android Google Play Store, and determine whether a novel approach to app assessment could identify high-quality and low-risk health apps in the absence of indicators such as NHS approval.
METHODS: The ORCHA-24, 24 app-assessment criteria concerning data privacy, clinical efficacy, and user experience, answered on a ‘yes’ or ‘no’, evidence-driven basis; was applied to assess 18 insomnia apps identified via the Android Google Play Store, in addition to the NHS-approved iOS app Sleepio™.
FINDINGS: 63.2% of apps (12/19) provided a privacy policy, with seven (36.8%) stating no user data would be shared without explicit consent. 10.5% (2/19) stated they had been shown to be of benefit to those with insomnia, with CBT apps outperforming hypnosis and meditation apps (p=0.046). Both the number of app downloads(p=0.29) and user-review scores (p=0.23) were unrelated to ORCHA-24 scores. The NHS-approved app Sleepio™ consistently outperformed non-accredited apps across all domains of the ORCHA-24.
CONCLUSION: Apps for chronic insomnia disorder exhibit substantial variation in adherence to published data privacy, user experience, and clinical efficacy standards; which are not clearly correlated with app downloads or user-review scores.
CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: In the absence of formal app accreditation, the ORCHA-24 could feasibly be used to highlight the risk-benefit profiles of health apps before downloading.