Inventors: Leontina Koleva, Physiology, Jana Albader, Clinical Biochemistry & Maria Fernanda Torres, Epidemiology
GraySpace aims to address the problem of continuity of care between medical appointments, aiming to improve patient outcomes and to increase patient retention.
Healthcare today is linear: a patient leaves a consultation, and care pauses until they proactively return. There is no true continuity of care. GraySpace turns that linear system into a loop, giving clinicians visibility into patient progress between appointments, while giving patients visibility into their own treatment journey. And over time, that loop becomes a spiral. Every interaction builds a deeper understanding of disease, helping the next patient get identified and treated earlier than the last.
The GraySpace platform aims to provide individualised advice to patients, giving them better visibility into their own care, and including details of their medical history explained in a non-technical way. This advice would include elements such as detailed reminders about when and how to take each medication, and explanations of the benefits of treatments such as physiotherapy and rehabilitation approaches.
At the same time the platform will give clinicians insight into the progress made by patients between appointments, and whether they are able to remember and follow the advice they were given.
The inventors intend to start first with podiatry, which is an area which particularly struggles with patient retention, and then with musculo-skeletal clinics, which covers areas such as physiotherapy, osteopathy and sports rehabilitation. These are also disciplines where treatments are typically provided by multiple small private clinics, and by trained healthcare practitioners rather than by doctors.
The question for the i-Team is to investigate this issue from the viewpoint of both the clinics and clinicians and of the patients. How much of a problem is patient retention or patient failure to adhere to the recommended treatments? How can a solution like GraySpace make patient return more likely? What would the patients value the most?