Derby Hospitals spin-out iQudos wins innovators award

22 April 2013

 iQudos, an IT company spun out of Derby Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, won an award for its prostate cancer decision support system at the NHS Healthcare Innovation Expo last month.

The award for Digital Innovation recognised the enormous potential of the first clinical expert system to be registered as a medical device and deployed in clinical practice in Europe.

At the “Dragon’s Den” style event iQudos presented to an expert panel of experienced entrepreneurs, NHS leaders and venture capitalists who recognised that the clinical decision support software produced by iQudos, and designed for the specific field of prostate cancer, had a wide application to other disease areas.

The product was seen as leading the field by resolving clear clinical needs for large populations of patients in what is potentially a large market. The system allows non-specialist healthcare workers to look after men with stable prostate cancer with as little as a morning’s training compared with the traditional two years it takes to train an oncology nurse.

Mike Henley, Medical Director at iQudos, and a practising consultant surgeon in Urology, said, "We have spent years training and testing this artificial intelligence software, which enables the management of long term care and stable prostate cancer. The system produces easy to read medical letters giving clear advice on the management of patients. These letters can be translated in real time into a patient’s native language and sent by email directly to the GP and into medical records, saving administrative time. We have demonstrated that the system is 10 times safer than human assessment in our clinical studies. Now GP practices and CCGs can set up a nurse-led prostate cancer follow up service with built in clinical governance. It’s a great way for GPs to be able to improve safety, quality and to reduce costs."

“The system is embedded in the NHS; the business has been supported by NHS Innovations Hub and sits within a secure NHS computer network. As the software is modular in construction we are well positioned to both update the system for changes in our understanding of prostate cancers and to introduce this approach into other specialist areas.”

 Dr Darren Clark, Chief Executive of Medilink East Midlands, which organised the presence of a group of companies at the Expo, said, “iQudos have achieved something of a holy grail by producing an e-Health system which is proven to operate safely, is registered as a medical device and is being used in clinical practice. Medilink has been supporting the iQudos team for several years and welcome this achievement of a registered and operating product which gives the opportunity for clinical commissioning groups in the UK to raise the standard of care while achieving significant cost and efficiency savings.

"However, the implications for global healthcare may well be even more significant with the World Health Organisation highlighting a huge shortage of healthcare workers globally which is only going to get worse as populations age. The use of IT systems like that of iQudos can be an important part of the solution to coping with these healthcare shortages. It is to their credit that iQudos are leading the field in this area and it shows what capacity there is for the NHS to generate world leading technologies from within its own ranks given the right commercial support and advice.”