Digital Health Rewired returned to the Business Design Centre in London on 15 and 16 March, featuring keynote speeches from Simon Bolton, Tim Ferris, Helen Thomas and Dan West. The agenda covered many areas of health and social care, including national policy, integrated care, digital transformation and a ‘pitchfest’ competition for digital health start-ups and innovators.

PRSB exhibited throughout the event and led on two sessions. Hosted by University Hospital Southampton’s CIO, Ade Byrne, PRSB’s Clinical Leads for diabetes, Dr Neel Basudev and Dr Iain Cranston joined Consultant Clinical Scientist and carer, Matt Guy, as well as NHS England’s diabetes programme lead, Ben McGough, to share their expertise on remote monitoring in diabetes care. Collecting and accessing data through wearables can be empowering for people but there are still issues the speakers stressed, including inequity of access and blurred lines of accountability between the clinician and the person. Ben McGough shared that there are exciting developments ahead for continuous glucose monitoring, with expected recommendations for T2 diabetics to start using flash glucose monitors shortly.

PRSB’s diabetes team are developing two new standards for diabetes care, including a self-management standard, which will structure the information received from remote monitoring devices.

In addition, the PRSB Person Lead for nursing, Emma Robertson, took to the digital nursing stage to share her patient perspective on nursing documentation. Giving the keynote address to the nursing panel, Emma stressed that person-centred care can only happen when patients are made active participants in their own care through access to up-to-date records. “Digital access to records would allow me to see my test results and flag errors before mistakes occur without needing to ask an overworked nurse with little time”, said Emma.

Following Emma’s inspirational speech, nurse panellists Helen Balsdon, Fran Beadle, Laura Rodgers and Paula Anderson thought ahead to the future of digital nursing records; collaboration and putting nurses in the driving seat for innovation were key recommendations from the team of experts.

Find out more about PRSB’s nursing project.