What’s happening in health tech in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia? Let’s take a look at the Seha Virtual Hospital (SVH), a programme aiming to enhance access, increase capacity, and support innovation.

KSA’s Ministry of Health describes the hospital as “empowering the best health consultants and practitioners in micro and rare specialties using the latest medical technologies to provide the highest level of medical services to beneficiaries in all cities and governorates of the Kingdom”. A priority initiative in KSA’s health sector transformation programme, SVH opened last year and supports 130 hospitals across KSA. It aims to enhance virtual health care; achieve innovation in the health sector; develop resources and achieve sustainability; and achieve institutional excellence.

Researchers at the University of Glasgow are working as part of an international project called CROSSBRAIN, with the aim of developing small injectable robots capable of mitigating and predicting epileptic seizures.

Over the next four years, the project will see the development of these implantable microbots, approximately a tenth of a millimetre in measurement and created from “advanced nanomaterials with specially-tailored physical properties.” It is led by Tor Vergata University of Rome and will be funded by the European Innovation Council.

Once the microbots have been implanted in the brain, they will be controlled through a wearable control unit which can monitor electrical activity. It is hoped that they will be able to detect the onset of a seizure and regulate the effect with targeted neurostimulation.

Professor Hadi Heidari from the University of Glasgow is leading the UK contribution to CROSSBRAIN. Professor Heidari’s Microelectronics Lab “conducts pioneering research on integrated micro and nanoelectronics design for medical and industrial applications,” the university states. In this project, the lab is to help design and deliver the microbots’ wireless power, data management and delivery systems.

Professor Heidari said: “CROSSBRAIN brings together leading researchers from across Europe, with a wide range of expertise in bioengineering, artificial intelligence, nanomaterial design and fabrication, and medical physics. I’m looking forward to collaborating with my colleagues to develop this exciting technology in the years to come.”

CROSSBRAIN’s principal investigator, Professor Nicola Toschi from the Tor Vergata University of Rome, commented: “It is widely known that many pathological brain conditions directly involve aberrant electrical activity of the brain, such as, epileptic seizures or panic disorders.

“In such conditions, timely recognition and prompt intervention are essential to begin effective periodic and adaptive treatment. However, the technologies available to guide and modulate brain activity in a precise and selective way for therapeutic purposes are severely limited to date, considerably reducing the therapeutic options. The CROSSBRAIN project aims to create radically new neurostimulation strategies and devices in the field of precision medicine with a key role in the predictive management of brain diseases.”

Other CROSSBRAIN collaborators include SISSA International School of Advanced Studies of Trieste in Italy; Percuros BV in The Netherlands; NaMLab in Germany; FAU Friedrich Alexander Universitaet in Germany; CIC Associacion Centro de Investigacion Cooperativa en Biomateriales in Spain; IIT Italian Institute of Technology Foundation in Italy; and the CSIC Agencia estatal consejo superior de investigaciones cientificas in Spain.

Bermuda Hospitals Board (BHB) has gone live with a new electronic medical record system called PEARL (Patient Electronic and Administrative Records Log), using Cerner’s Millennium product.

The system is being introduced to “replace a number of other systems” and to “support integration,” BHB said.

The implementation of PEARL is “a significant move in line with technology used world wide by hospitals, and opens up new opportunities for using digital solutions to better care for and reach those most in need,” the hospital board noted.

The EPR is being used across all services throughout Bermuda Hospitals, with implementation supported by ‘PEARL super users’ placed in different departments during go-live to help staff, and a command centre running for the first two weeks of the system to resolve issues quicker and more efficiently.

A second phase of the project will see patients and their community doctors provided with access to the system, to support transition from hospital to other healthcare providers.

CEO and President Michael Richmond commented that staff must be given time to get used to new processes, but “once we are used to using the system, the opportunities for improvements are going to help us soar.”

Chief of Staff Wesley Miller added: “PEARL is going to transform what is possible in delivering the very best in safe, quality care across BHB. A system implementation of this size and complexity isn’t easy, but the reward of working through it will be in the enhanced ability to improve patient care and outcomes, which is at the heart of all we do.”

BHB have provided a range of information about PEARL including a FAQ guide and videos to explain how the system works. Click here to find out more.