Cohealo and NHS Supply Chain Expand Equipment Tracking Program with NHS Trusts in the South West London Health and Care Partnership

Building on the savings and efficiency benchmarks achieved by Croydon Health Services NHS Trust, Cohealo and NHS Supply Chain: Large Diagnostic Capital Equipment including Mobile and Services will partner with St George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Kingston Hospital NHS Foundation Trust as part of a pilot project to optimize medical equipment use to decrease wait lists and save money.

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Cohealo, a platform to track and share medical equipment, and NHS Supply Chain’s Tower 7 provided by DHL, the leading global brand in the logistics industry, today announced agreements with two additional trusts in the South West London Health and Care Partnership to deploy Cohealo’s medical equipment analytics platform. Currently, the United Kingdom is facing a record demand for diagnostic imaging equipment, with a backlog of 5.6 million patients waiting for scans due to COVID-19 delays¹. Data generated from Cohealo’s platform will be used to set and achieve equipment efficiency targets, providing recommendations on smoothing or adjusting scheduling, hiring additional staff, opening additional appointments, or reallocating equipment between locations. Longitudinal insights on equipment utilization will inform capital planning across service lines, ensuring limited budgets are invested in the areas of greatest need within radiology, endoscopy, theatres, and echocardiology.

“We cannot maximize what we cannot measure,” said Parminder Bilkhu, Head of Medical Equipment and Decontamination at Croydon Health Services NHS Trust. “Working with Cohealo provided access to data that we previously did not have and enabled our entire team to rethink many of our existing approaches to maximizing our equipment.” Since implementing Cohealo’s platform, with the support of NHS Supply Chain, Croydon Health Services NHS Trust has achieved £352,000 in savings on just one category of medical equipment and instituted scheduling changes to improve the throughput of some of their most expensive assets.

The partnership operates as part of the Tower 7 procurement contract awarded to DHL by NHS Supply Chain for large diagnostic, capital devices including mobile and consumables.

“NHS Supply Chain is committed to collaborating with NHS trusts to implement new technologies that benefit stakeholders across the NHS. Croydon Health Services demonstrates that with the right data, we can identify new savings opportunities while ensuring trusts buy the right equipment, at the right time, to best meet patient care needs,” said Antonia Marks, Director of NHS Supply chain: Large Diagnostics Capital Equipment including Mobile and Services.

“COVID-19 has emphasized the importance of effective resource utilization, both for financial recovery and reducing waitlists for diagnostics and treatments, yet the hurdle to collect accurate utilization information can be near insurmountable,” said Todd Rothenhaus, Cohealo’s chief executive officer. “We are honored to be working with NHS Supply Chain and the trust leadership teams at Croydon Health Services, Kingston Hospital, and St George's University Hospitals to turn their data into actionable outcomes that make the most of their equipment.”

¹ [1] Campbell, D., & Duncan, P. (2021, September 9). Record 5.6m people in England waiting for hospital treatment. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/sep/09/record-56m-people-in-england-waiting-for-routine-hospital-treatment