CASE STUDY
Facilitating clinician access to home videos of epilepsy seizures
UNMET NEED
Recording home videos of epileptic seizures is particularly important for accurate diagnosis of epileptic and non-epileptic events and movement disorders. However, there is no secure way for patients and families to transfer recordings to clinical services. It is also difficult for clinical teams to store, classify, and retrieve recordings effectively. Epilepsy misdiagnosis can occur if eyewitness accounts are used. An effective system is required with appropriate clinical governance and security, such that video recordings can be shared with clinical teams, stored, and interpreted accurately.
SOLUTION
NIHR CYP MedTech collaborated with a small company called vCreate as well as NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, NHS Scotland, and sites across UK (including Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), Evelina London, and Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust) to pilot a secure video upload system called vCreate Neuro.
vCreate Neuro enables physicians to access videos of seizures provided by families, with central secure storage, aiming for increased remote care, rapid decision making, and reduced hospital attendance. The vCreate system is now being trialled by all paediatric neurology centres in Scotland, several adult centres, and multiple paediatric sites across England. To date, over 4,500 videos have been uploaded. Good feedback has been received so far from patients, families, and clinical teams.
STAGE OF DEVELOPMENT BEFORE WORKING WITH NIHR CYP MEDTECH
Basic idea
Concept development
Prototype development
Prototype validation
Clinical testing
Regulatory approval
Manufacturing
Commercially available
SUPPORT PROVIDED BY NIHR CYP MEDTECH
Facilitating collaborations with stakeholders
NIHR CYP MedTech arranged discussions with the Yorkshire and Humber Academic Health Science Network (AHSN) and NHSX to facilitate testing and adoption across the UK.
Access to NHS and NIHR infrastructure
The theme lead for the Epilepsy, Muscle, and Movement Disorders theme (Professor Helen Cross) has been part of the pilot study to test vCreate Neuro across the UK. Professor Cross also has links with other NHS sites to facilitate expansion of the pilot trial to other sites.
Support and guidance to secure funding
Professor Helen Cross led on the application to secure funding from the GOSH Children’s Charity to expand testing of the vCreate Neuro system to UK paediatric services.
NEXT STEPS
The collaborating partners are continuing to spread the adoption of the technology across sites in the UK and internationally. The vCreate system could be used for treating other neurological conditions, facilitating community/home assessments, and enabling transfer of videos between other healthcare institutions. Machine learning algorithms could be developed utilising large international datasets. Teaching, diagnosis, and research could also benefit from linking large video datasets.
IMPACT
The vCreate Neuro system enables videos to be transferred securely, stored, and interpreted accurately by the clinical team. This has a significant impact on the service and quality of the care that patients receive. For example, the system will improve the accuracy of treatment decisions and also reduce time to diagnosis and therapy upon seizure detection. It will also offer substantial cost, time, and efficiency savings for health services.
The vCreate system is also being used by the Neonatal Surgical Unit at Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust to reduce separation anxiety experienced by parents. This has been funded by The Children’s Hospital Charity (TCHC) and a story from one family who used the system can be found on the TCHC website.
FUNDING
Funding was originally awarded in March 2020 by the Scottish Government’s Technology Enabled Care and Healthcare Improvement Scotland for a pilot study and service evaluation of vCreate Neuro for several paediatric and adult neurology services in Scotland and England.
Ongoing funding has been secured in Scotland and charitable funding (e.g., GOSH Children’s Charity) has been obtained for further testing in the UK. Additional funding has been awarded from Epilepsy Research UK to utilise videos for artificial intelligence detection of seizures and the initial work will start with infantile spasms.
PARTNERS
Last updated: 18 May 2022
