Outcomes Based Healthcare and Big Data Partnership Secure Grant for a £1m Project to Use Big Data to Predict Complications of Diabetes

LONDON, December 9, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --

Outcomes Based Healthcare, one of the UK's leading health outcomes advisory and technology companies and Big Data Partnership, big data service provider across all industries, today announced that they have secured a match-funded grant for a £1m project from Innovate UK, the UK's innovation agency (formerly the Technology Strategy Board) for a 'Digital Health in a Connected Hospital' funding call.

Outcomes Based Healthcare and Big Data Partnership are working together to lead the drive toward a more personalised, data-driven approach to improving health outcomes in people with diabetes.

Until now, big data and advanced analytics have been used in healthcare to predict cost of care, or chance of hospital readmission. This project will take this technology a step further; creating a dashboard that provides deep insights into disease progression, to enable doctors and patients to make better decisions about their health. It will use massive amounts of data to accurately predict an individual's outcomes and allow pre-treatment of medical complications that really impact the lives of people living with diabetes - heart attacks, strokes, eye disease, kidney disease and limb amputations.

"Healthcare systems are cracking under the pressure of ever-growing global health budgets, partly because we're treating people with drugs and interventions, without being sure exactly who will benefit from any given treatment," said Dr. Rupert Dunbar-Rees, former GP and founder/CEO at Outcomes Based Healthcare. "Applying data science and outcomes insight to healthcare systems can fundamentally disrupt current disease management, allowing greater precision in care delivery, and 'pre-treatment' rather than simply prevention."

The project will be the first to link huge amounts of health data and non-health data and analyse it using machine learning. The software will support healthcare providers in making decisions about exactly who, when and how to pre-treat complications of diabetes with an approach that promises to reduce costs and improve the overall health of patients. The technology will empower doctors through finding patterns and correlations in the data that predict complications of diabetes, far in advance of symptoms appearing.

"Huge amounts of real data holds the secrets to many business and social challenges," said Mike Merritt-Holmes, CEO and cofounder of Big Data Partnership. "We are thrilled to be able to apply the latest industry thinking and technology to big data from lifestyles, medication, environment and diet to discover a truly innovative way to approach healthcare."

The diabetes prototype will be developed and tested by experts, commissioners, hospitals and GPs by Q2 2016. Once complete, the team will apply the approach to other diseases and patient communities.

About Outcomes Based Healthcare (OBH) 

Founded in 2013, Outcomes Based Healthcare is a healthcare advisory, education and technology company offering strategic advice and technology solutions for advancing medical delivery systems. Outcomes Based Healthcare is at the forefront of change in the health system, to incentivise healthcare providers to work together to achieve and improve health outcomes that ultimately matter to patients. For more information: http://www.outcomesbasedhealthcare.com.

About Big Data Partnership

Founded in 2012, Big Data Partnership is EMEA's leading big data specialist solution provider. Offering strategic consulting, data science, big data engineering and certified training & support, Big Data Partnership provides scalable and reliable solutions to capture, store and analyse big data. Big Data Partnership's team has deep expertise and experience in key big data technologies including the Apache Hadoop ecosystem, Apache Cassandra, Apache Spark and other NoSQL and search technologies. For more information, visit http://www.bigdatapartnership.com.

About Innovate UK 

Innovate UK is the new name for the Technology Strategy Board - the UK's innovation agency. Taking a new idea to market is a challenge. Innovate UK funds, supports and connects innovative businesses through a unique mix of people and programmes to accelerate sustainable economic growth. For further information visit http://www.innovateuk.org

Collaborative R&D: 

As the UK's innovation agency, one of the main roles of Innovate UK is to achieve business and economic growth for the UK. One way the organisation supports this is through funding innovative Collaborative Research and Development (CR&D) projects. Collaborative research and development (R&D) encourages businesses and researchers to work together on innovative projects in strategically important areas of science, engineering and technology - from which successful new products, processes and services can emerge, contributing to business and economic growth. Find out more about the CR&D programme here: https://www.innovateuk.org/-/collaborative-r-d

Notes to editors 

1. Health systems generally apply clinical guidelines to whole populations with medical conditions. Evidence from small-scale clinical trials often informs recommendations on prevention, treatment and intervention. All people with diabetes are treated according to the same guidelines, however they respond in very different ways. This results in interventions that work well for a small percentage but may be ineffective or cause side effects for many other sufferers.
2. According to a 2014 Diabetes UK report, diabetes accounts for about 10 per cent of the NHS budget with 80 per cent of these costs due to complications. The cost of diabetes to the NHS is £9.8bn in direct costs in 2010/11 with £1bn for Type 1 and £8.8bn for Type 2. Demographic changes and the high obesity rate mean that, if the costs of treating a patient with diabetes stay the same, the overall costs of diabetes are set to grow over the next 20 years, when it is projected to account for 17% of the entire NHS budget.

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SOURCE Big Data Partnership and Outcomes Based Healthcare