CW Innovation, led jointly by CW+ and Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, tests and scales high-impact innovations that improve patient care and the way we run our hospitals.

Together, we look for new and innovative solutions that address the most fundamental challenges healthcare organisations face today.

Our portfolio of over 80 CW Innovation projects has generated national recognition for the Trust as an emerging leader in innovation and an early-adopter and designer of transformative, next-generation services and care tools.

We have advanced at pace in response to the pandemic and introduced a range of digital systems and platforms into our day-to-day functioning to help us continue to deliver safe, consistent and high-quality clinical care whilst helping to make things easier for our patients.

The CW Innovation programme manages a portfolio of projects including:

Delivering patient centred care in a location of their choosing and in a way that fits with their everyday lives

  • The Klick mobile app allows patients with stable HIV to manage their condition remotely and communicate with their healthcare team from home.
  • The DBm-Health app enables patients with diabetes to remotely monitor blood glucose levels while allowing clinicians to stay in regular contact with them.
  • Our eye-tracking technology uses AI to monitor the eye movement of patients, facilitating early detection of delirium.
  • The use of Sensium sensors remotely monitors three key indicators of patient deterioration - heart rate, breathing rate and temperature - every two minutes, compared with current monitoring standards of 4-6 hours.
  • The use of portable pulse oximeter devices on our virtual COVID-19 wards enables patients to measure blood oxygen saturation levels two to three times a day at home for clinicians to review.
  • We tested and scaled ISLA technology across North West London, which enables patients to share securely and conveniently images of skin conditions with clinicians digitally.
  • Our innovative Mum & Baby app has become one of the top three women’s health apps in the UK, and is now being adopted nationwide, covering over 25% of all LMSs in England.
  • Our Hand Therapy app is used by >90% of Chelsea and Westminster’s hand therapy patients as a preferred method of receiving exercise programmes.

Harnessing digital healthcare, AI and machine learning to improve experiences of, and outcomes from, care

  • Our increased use of AI and machine learning is putting real-time data and analytics into the hands of clinicians, enabling them to get diagnoses right first time and identify patients with deteriorating health earlier. For example:
    • AI algorithms codeveloped with Sensyne provide clinicians with near real-time risk prediction for COVID-19 patients, predicting the risk of ICU admission, the need for mechanical ventilation and in-hospital mortality. Watch this video to find out more.
    • Visual DX handheld AI enables clinicians to diagnose difficult to identify skin conditions and disorders.
  • Our new postnatal service developed in response to COVID-19 builds on the existing award-winning postnatal digital solution codeveloped with Lumeon, and enables mothers to receive a detailed, personalised, digital discharge report that is integrated with the NHS Care Information Exchange Patients Know Best (PKB) platform and can be shared with community professionals.

  • Our unique project with ThermaFY Protect provides bespoke thermal screening that combines temperature readings with staff identification.
  • Our award-winning Acute Diagnostic Oncology Clinic (ADOC) is a nurse-led fast track service for patients with a clinical suspicion of cancer. This is the first clinic of its kind in the UK.
  • We launched the UK's first digital platform to improve outcomes for colorectal patients that supports clinicians to tailor treatment to individual needs and improve quality of life.
  • Patchwork Health’s flexible bank working technology, piloted at the Trust, is now being rolled-out nationally to connect NHS organisations to a pool of available clinicians who can fill shift vacancies.

Accelerating Innovation

CW+ is a founding partner of the DigitalHealth.London Accelerator (DH.LA). Now in its fifth consecutive year, the programme has supported some of the biggest and most effective digital innovations now being used by the NHS including Patchwork Health, DrDoctor, Lumeon and MeeTwo, which were all initially trailed at Chelsea and Westminster.

We have partnered with Los Angeles-headquartered KidsX Accelerator, which aims to fill the unmet need of deploying digital health technologies in paediatric care. The KidsX Accelerator programme is a 13-week virtual program with 40 paediatric departments and hospitals across the world.

Innovation Fellowships

We are working with an increasing number of partners not just to introduce new ideas but to also develop new ways of working. One example is our partnership with the Burdett Trust for Nursing, who have awarded us a three-year grant to establish a first-of-its-kind Nursing Innovation Fellow. Specifically created to spearhead nurse, midwife, and allied health professional-led projects as part of our CW Innovation programme, the Fellow is developing a cohort of outstanding nurse-led transformative projects making a significant difference to patient care at the Trust’s hospitals and clinics.

We have also partnered with the Rosetrees Trust, a charity which funds entrepreneurs and medical research, to recruit another Digital Innovation Fellow to deliver new digital solutions sourced from DH.LA and other innovation network partners including, ICHP, SEHTA, NIA etc.

We are also part of the DigitalHealth.London Digital Pioneer Fellowship programme, which supports change makers employed by NHS organisations to design and lead transformation projects underpinned by digital innovation.