A tech platform credited with revolutionising rehabilitation for the neuro sector goes live today as the first step in its national roll-out.
Neuro ProActive has been created to enable a fully multi-disciplinary approach to rehabilitation, covering both inpatient and community care and involving patients and their families in the process.
The app – which supports the spectrum of neurological conditions, from brain injury to stroke, dementia and Long COVID – enables greater cohesion between therapists through its end-to-end message and video calling encryption, which allows remote services and patient monitoring to be done via one single platform.
Neuro ProActive – the successor to the award-winning Stroke Active – has been in development for more than three years and goes live at UCLH Queen Square today. It will be used in its Upper Limb Neurorehabilitation Programme.
The app is set to launch into six NHS Trusts initially, with national and international expansion planned in the near future.
Professor Nick Ward, clinical lead on the Upper Limb Programme, has been a key advisor to Ian Pearce on the development of both Stroke Active and Neuro ProActive.
Ian, whose father had a stroke in 2017, was inspired to develop a platform to increase co-ordination in care to help families like his.
Whilst having no background in healthcare or tech development, Ian created Stroke Active – which was named Innovation of the Year Award at the 2019 European Neuro Convention, in recognition of the role it played in revolutionising communication between stroke professionals and promoting patient self-management – and has since created Neuro ProActive.
Working with healthcare software developers L2S2, Neuro ProActive has been created as an entirely separate platform which has been built from scratch to be entirely fit for purpose for the whole neuro sector.
“After three years of consultations with patients, families and AHPs, it’s great to see Neuro ProActive deployed at UCLH,” says Ian.
“Nick and his team were involved in the platform’s development from an early stage. The feedback we’re now getting from therapy teams all over the UK is extremely positive.
“The pandemic has severely curtailed the provision of rehab services and Neuro ProActive helps NHS Trusts adhere to NICE guidelines on patient care in a post-COVID world.”
Speaking to NR Times about its role in neuro care, Ian says: “Frequently, there is a gap between inpatient and outpatient – early supported discharge too often is just early discharge, you hear stories of people waiting six weeks before their therapy starts, which makes things so much more difficult further down the line.
“But by using the platform, we have enabled patients to connect with their community rehab team. We work across all six disciplines – neurophysio, speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, diet, arts and neuropsychology – and the whole MDT can contribute to the dashboard in real time.
“Enabling patients to have the ability to self-manage, while also including family members in the rehabilitation process, is so important. Through using the app, everyone can be involved in the process. Each patient has their own message board too, so can instantly get in touch with their team.”
