Amara Nwosu

MBCHB FRCP PhD

Tag Archives: healthcare


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Robotic technology for palliative and supportive care: Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats

How could robots help us at the end of life? Check out this open access article I published with some great co-authors.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0269216319857628

What is already known about the topic?

  • Medical robots have mainly been used to support surgical procedures and for a variety of assistive uses in dementia and elderly care.
  • There has been limited debate about the potential opportunities and risks of robotics in other areas of palliative, supportive and end-of-life care.

What this paper adds?

  • The potential opportunities of robotics in palliative, supportive and end-of-life care include a number of assistive, therapeutic, social and educational uses.
  • There is concern that robots will exacerbate healthcare inequalities, disrupt the workforce and reduce face-to-face human interaction.

Implications for practice, theory or policy

  • Future work should evaluate the health-related, economic, societal and ethical implications of using robotic technology in palliative, supportive and end-of-life care.
  • There is a need for collaborative research to establish use-cases and policy recommendations to guide the appropriate use of robots for people with serious illness.

CLICK below to access the artilce

Nwosu AC, Sturgeon B, McGlinchey T, Goodwin CDG, Behera A, Mason S, Stanley S, Payne TR. Robotic technology for palliative and supportive care: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Palliative Medicine 2019.

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Learning through listening: The development of the ‘SAGE Palliative Medicine & Chronic Care’ podcast

I was delighted to be invited to write a guest blog for the European Association of Palliative Care (EAPC) website, about my role in developing podcasts for ‘Palliative Medicine’ in my role Digital Editor for the journal.

The full blog post can be found here:

Learning through listening EAPC guest blog

Screen Shot 2017-08-22 at 15.16.17

 

How to access the ‘SAGE Palliative Medicine & Chronic Care’ podcasts

  • Subscribe to the podcasts from iTunes here.

 


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The future of digital health? the King’s Fund Digital Health and Care Congress 2017

Much written about the potential to use digital tools to reform healthcare, concentrate on the short to medium term (i.e. 5- 10 years). However, many of the benefits from digital health will only be fully realised in the longer (i.e. >10 years) term. This is because benefits arising from disruptive technologies may only be achieved following the implementation of cultural, workforce and infrastructural change, which can take time to achieve.

The King’s Fund Digital Health Conference recenty took place across two days in London (11th – 12th July) and provided an opportunity for profesionals from different disciplines to discuss how digital technologies can be used to transform healthcare delivery in the long term. There were several speakers and workstream groups which covered discussion of the opportunities and challenges of these approaches, in addittion to providing many examples of current use of technological and workplace innovation.

Particular highlights for me was Rob Shaw’s (Interim Chief Executive for NHS Digital) talk about the NHS Digital’s perpective on the importance of utilising health data better to provide integrated care. Also, Nicola Perrin (Wellcome Trust) provided an overview of the ‘Understanding Pataient Data’ project, which looks to improve awareness in society (professionals and lay people) about the value of using healthcare data to support patient care. Furthermore, the Wellcome Trust this year will undertake a project which will examine public perceptions of the role of new emerging technology (e.g. artificial intelligence, machine learning) in healthcare.

Many of the talks at the conference had inter-connecting themes; highlighting the importance of forming policy to shape culture through engagement of wider society and professionals. Although there is evidence of innovative work in several areas, a lot of fragmentation is currenty present. Consequently, it is important for collaborations of partners with a shared common vision for digital health.

As an academic palliative medicine physician I am interested in the potential digital health applications to support the management of people with serious illness. If anyone is also interested in undertaking work in this area, please feel free to contact me.

Further information of the King’s Fund Digital Health Conference (and other events by the King’s Fund) can be found here:

https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/events/digital-health-and-care-congress-2017

IMG_20170712_134205946


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Internet of Things Technology for elderly home support – NHS Knowledge Exchange Scheme

This year I was delighted to have been chosen to participate in the NHS North West Research and Development Knowledge Exchange scheme. This was the inaugural year for an exchange program which aims to facilitate the sharing of ideas, skills and knowledge between the health, University and business sectors. The hope is that such an exchange will lead to future innovation and collaboration between these areas.
The scheme was a fantastic opportunity for me to build on my interests of how new emerging technology is used to support care for people living with advanced illness. On the 5th of July I had the pleasure of spending a day with the Howz (https://www.howz.com), a company that specialises in the development of Internet of Things Home monitoring devices. Howz is a platform aimed at elderly people, typically living alone, that monitors energy usage, linking to patterns of daily activity which are identified by non-invasive multi-sensors that track heat, light and movement.The data is fed into live updates within the Howz app interface, allowing the user to notify their care network of their daily routine. The app also uses the data to spot anomalies in daily activity and send alerts to a family member, friend or care giver.
Throughout the day I met with different members of the team and discussed the opportunities and challenges surrounding the development of technology to provide health monitoring in the home environment. We shared potential solutions for overcome theses challenges and discussed opportunities for future work and collaboration.
 IMG_20170705_145711312.jpg
Further information about the Knowledge Exchange Scheme for Early Career Researcher can be found here:
Further information about Howz can be found here:


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Poster about the ‘Palliative Medicine’ podcasts presented at the 2017 North West Annual Medical Leadership and Management Conference

I am currently the Digital Editor of the Palliative Medicine journal (the world’s highest ranked journal, peer reviewed scholarly journal dedicated to improving knowledge and clinical practice in the palliative care of patients with far advanced disease: http://journals.sagepub.com/home/pmj ). In this role I lead the development of podcasts to enable dissemination of the journals’ work to a wider audience. Essentially this work follows on from my foray into the podcast world through my AmiPal podcasts (https://soundcloud.com/mypal), which are podcasts about palliative care, technology and innovation.

On the 14th June I was delighted to present a poster about the development of these Palliative Medicine podcasts at the 2017 North West Annual Medical Leadership and Management Conference which took place in the AJ Bell stadium. The poster featured some initial data on the popularity of the podcasts and some download data. Essentially the podcasts are doing very well with many authors getting into the process of recording podcasts which have been well received.

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A link to the ‘SAGE Palliative Medicine & Chronic Care’ podcasts can be found through the Palliative Medicine site here: http://journals.sagepub.com/page/pmj/podcasts

You can subscribe to the podcasts from iTunes here: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/sage-palliative-medicine-chronic/id1179036261?mt=2

The podcasts are available from most podcast app services by simply searching for ‘Palliative Medicine’. However, if you need the RSS feed to subscribe to can do find that here: http://sagepalliativemedicine.sage-publications.libsynpro.com/rss

If you’re an author of a paper published in Palliative Medicine are interested in recording a podcast, please feel free to contact me.


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Sensor City: Connected cows and better mousetraps

This evening I had the pleasure to attend a networking event at ‘Sensor City’ Liverpool. Sensor City is a Liverpool-based technical innovation centre and University Enterprise Zone; it aims to support the creation, development, production and promotion of cutting edge sensor technologies for use in a wide range of sectors.

http://www.sensorcity.co.uk/

Sensor City

The event was entitled ‘Connected cows and better mousetraps’ and detailed myriad potential  ‘use-cases’ for the application of Internet of Things (IoT) technology in industry.

http://www.sensorcity.co.uk/event/connected-cows-better-mousetraps/

The session was led by Mark Maidman, a representative from Actility (https://www.actility.com/) a company specialising in IoT devices.

As a palliative care doctor interested in technology my immediate thoughts are about the potential uses of IoT to support care of people with advanced disease and complex needs. Events like these are excellent in fostering cross-disciplinary collaboration which will hopefully lead to innovation through sharing expertise and resources.

Further information about sensor cities events can be found here:

http://www.sensorcity.co.uk/events/

Are you interested in the role of emerging technologies in facilitating supportive and palliative care for individuals and populations? If so, please free to comment and get in touch with me.


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Podcasts can help global discussion of palliative care

The following article has been reproduced from the University of Liverpool website:

A new study conducted by the Marie Curie Palliative Care Institute Liverpool (MCPCIL) shows the positive impact and reach podcasts can have on palliative care globally.

MCPCIL was formed in 2004 and is a partnership between the University of Liverpool, the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust and the national charity Marie Curie, and is based with the University’s Institute of Translational Medicine.

Podcasts (downloadable online digital audio files) have the potential to facilitate communication about palliative care with researchers, policymakers and the public. Some podcasts about palliative care are available; however, this is not reflected in the academic literature.

Worldwide

The study, led by Dr Amara Nwosu, Academic Clinical Lecturer in Palliative Medicine, involved the development a podcast about palliative care, research and innovation according to internationally agreed quality indicators for medical education podcasts. Additionally, the study includes an analysis of the listenership over a 14 month period to demonstrate the reach and potential impact of the podcast.

The podcasts,were published on SoundCloud and promoted via social media. Overall 20 podcasts were developed which were listened to 3036 times (an average of 217 monthly plays) and listened to in 68 different countries. They were most popular in English-speaking areas, of which the USA, UK and Canada were most common.

The study, published in the British Medical Journal of Supportive & Palliative Care, highlights the potential usefulness for medical organisations to develop podcasts for specific purposes, such as education, lecture capture and research dissemination.

New opportunities

Dr Amara Nwosu, Academic Clinical Lecturer in Palliative Medicine, said: “Technology is increasingly being integrated into medicine to support new opportunities for the delivery of clinical practice, education and research. A palliative care podcast is a method to facilitate palliative care discussion with global audience. Podcasts offer the potential to develop educational content and promote research dissemination.

“Future work should focus on content development, quality metrics and impact analysis, as this form of digital communication is likely to increase and engage wider society.”

The full study, entitled ‘The use of podcast technology to facilitate education, communication and dissemination in palliative care: the development of the AmiPal podcast’, can be foundhere.

A podcast summary of the paper can also be found here.


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MyPal podcast: Five apps that help my clinical-academic life – Episode 14

In this episode of MyPal I talk about five apps/web applications I use that help my daily life as a clinical academic.

The apps are:

1) Evernote / Google Keep / Onenote / Todoist
evernote.com/
www.google.com/keep/
www.onenote.com/
en.todoist.com/

2) Google Drive / Dropbox / Onedrive
www.google.co.uk/drive/
www.dropbox.com/
onedrive.live.com/about/en-us/

3) Feedly / Flipboard
feedly.com/
flipboard.com/

4)Pocket
getpocket.com

5) Twitter
twitter.com/

Other apps to mention:
If this then that (now know as IF or IFTTT)
ifttt.com/

Social media and palliative medicine: a retrospective 2-year analysis of global twitter data to evaluate the use of technology to communicate about issues at the end of life. Nwosu et al, BMJ Spcare.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25183713

Copyright Dr Amara Nwosu, KingAmi Media 2015. www.amaranwosu.com

Music by ‘Year of the Fiery Horse’ (YOTFH). Soundcloud link: @year-of-the-fiery-horse


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MyPal podcast: Wearable technology in healthcare – can palliative care benefit? Episode 13

Does wearable technology have a role in improving heath, monitoring fitness and helping deliver personalised medical therapies or is it just a fad which will disappear in time? In this episode of MyPal I discuss the potential wearable technology has for healthcare and also highlights the limitations of the current technology.

Wearable Devices as Facilitators, Not Drivers, of Health Behavior Change by Mitesh S. Patel et al (JAMA)

jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?a…icleid=2089651

Copyright Dr Amara Nwosu, KingAmi media 2015. www.amaranwosu.com

Music by ‘Year of the Fiery Horse’ (YOTFH). Soundcloud link: @year-of-the-fiery-horse


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MyPal podcast episode 7: Is there too much technology in healthcare?

In this episode of MyPal Dr Amara Nwosu discusses a recent article from the BMJ by Bjorn Morten Hofmann, University College of Gjovik which poses the question of whether there is too much technology in healthcare.

Too much Technology by Bjørn Morten Hofmann – BMJ 21/02/2015 (subscription required to access link)
http://www.bmj.com/content/350/bmj.h705

Digitalman

Copyright Dr Amara Nwosu, KingAmi media 2014. http://www.amaranwosu.com

Music by ‘Year of the Fiery Horse’ (YOTFH). Soundcloud link: https://soundcloud.com/year-of-the-fiery-horse