NHS trust rolls out digital health tool for kidney disease

An NHS trust in England is starting a pilot study of a digital health platform developed by Cognitant Group that it hopes will transform the care of people with kidney disease.

The North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB) will deploy Cognitate's Healthinote platform in a one-year trial to see if it can help achieve earlier detection and prevention of chronic kidney disease (CKD), a condition estimated to affect 10% of the UK population.

Healthinote is a smartphone-based toolkit designed to boost patient engagement by providing personalised, trustworthy, and easy-to-use information and digital tools that can help people manage health conditions. It is already used across the NHS to support patients with various other long-term health conditions.

The SPOT CKD (Screening, Prevention, Outreach and Treatment for Health Equity) pilot brings together the ICB, Health Innovation North East and North Cumbria, and pharma group Boehringer Ingelheim, whose blockbuster SGLT2 inhibitor Jardiance (empagliflozin) was approved to treat CKD in Europe in 2023.

According to the partners, the aim is to "transform CKD outcomes in high-risk communities by identifying patients early and equipping them with the tools to manage their health proactively."

CKD tends to be more common in older people with a family history of kidney disease, as well as certain ethnic groups, including Black and Asian communities.

The scheme will revolve around Kidney Essentials, a multilingual digital resource co-created with patients and clinicians at the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust that has been shown to boost patients' understanding CKD, reduce the risk of disease progression, and help them to take an active role in their care with the help of their care teams.

Consultant nephrologist Dr Sarah McCloskey, who is supporting the rollout of SPOT CKD, said it "marks a major step forward in addressing health inequalities across the North East of England and North Cumbria. It's set to transform consultations, reduce unnecessary appointments, and free up valuable time for clinicians to focus on what matters most."

The pilot ties in with the government's recently unveiled 10-Year Plan for the NHS, which is calling for greater use of digital health technologies, a shift in focus to disease prevention, rather than treating illness, and moving care from hospitals and into the community.

"This is a perfect example of how digital health services can be successfully integrated into the NHS to improve patient care whilst also reducing the load on clinical GP practices and hospitals," said Cognitant's chief executive, Dr Tim Ringrose.