Covid-19: What's Next for Healthtech?

In June, the UK’s Recovery trial achieved a covid breakthrough by demonstrating that dexamethasone was effective in treating patients with the virus. How did a clinical trial, launched just three months before, reach a conclusion so quickly and without cutting corners on safety?

The trial took an approach of ruthless simplicity. The protocol was only 16 pages long, which can be ten times as long for a standard trial while only absolute necessary participant data was collected with the rest filled in through NHS records. The trial sponsors made streamlined training materials available and an instruction from the chief medical officers encouraged every hospital to recruit patients, making this a whole-NHS effort. Thousands of patients were recruited in record time with the UK achieving a world leading case study.

The benefits for patients across all other disease groups if even half of the efficiencies demonstrated through Recovery could be retained are immense. There is a clear role for data. The emergency of covid prioritised pooling clinical data to find the solution as fast as possible. A broader conversation with the public should take place before this is replicated for cancer, dementia and other research areas.

The most significant change has, however, been a cultural one. Regulators have worked together to approve the trial at speed. Clinicians and NHS organisations collaborated to identify and enrol patients. There was strong visible leadership that this should be a priority. The result has been that good research has helped the NHS achieve its mission, to save lives.

I’ll be discussing some of the data and technology issues with speakers from NHS England, NHS and Social Care frontline and industry including Microsoft and DXC in Global Counsel’s webinar ‘Covid-19: What’s Next for Healthtech’. Do sign up and join us here