Isabel Healthcare Ltd Expands Operation With £1.7
million Funding
£1.7million Funding To Develop Clinical Decision Support Systems
Providing a Safety Net For UK Clinicians
London, 14th October 2004 – Isabel Healthcare Ltd today announced that it has
secured £1.7million equity funding to develop and extend its unique diagnosis
reminder system. By equipping clinicians with a sophisticated decision support tool,
developed using Autonomy software, clinical decision-making should be significantly
enhanced, delays in starting correct treatment should be cut, and there should be
less need for patient transfers to specialist centres – keeping patients out of costly
acute care.
Currently, adverse events cost the NHS approximately £2 billion every year in
avoidable hospital stays. Additionally, the NHS pays approximately £400 million
every year settling clinical negligence claims and hospital acquired infections (about
15% of which are avoidable through more accurate diagnosis) costing the NHS a
total of £1 billion per year1. The full development of Isabel should help dramatically
reduce the costs that are hampering the development of a 21 st Century health
system.
Having taken 5 years to refine the paediatric version of Isabel, the funding allows
Isabel Healthcare Ltd to further develop its US offering and to finalise development
of a full adult version, due to be released later this year.
About the Diagnosis Reminder Software
Isabel Healthcare has developed an award-winning clinical decision support system,
comprising a differential diagnostic tool, treatment algorithms, an image library, and
a section on lessons learnt. The differential diagnostic tool applies sophisticated
pattern recognition technology from Autonomy to a specially developed medical
1
DoH figures 2004
database to help find quickly and efficiently the most relevant diseases that match
the clinical features that have been entered by the healthcare professional.
Dr Warren Hyer, Consultant at Northwick Park Hospital states: “Today’s healthcare
professionals are working in an age where not only are the number of potential
patients increasing, but also the amount of knowledge they are expected to
remember on a daily basis is becoming almost impossible without the use of clinical
decision support aids.
“It is essential that investment like this is made to ensure that doctors and nurses
have the technology they need to make the accurate diagnoses that help deliver
better care to children and adults at the earliest possible stage. The funding will see
the benefits paediatric clinicians have derived from using Isabel transferred to a
much wider clinical audience – the fact that every doctor taking a diagnosis decision
can have access to Isabel support is comforting.”
In a Report issued in September 2004, Laura Ramos, Senior Research Analyst at
Forrester Research stated: “Isabel is a hosted service that prompts physicians to
consider different diagnoses using a Web-based, point and click interface. It displays
checklists of likely diagnoses grouped by systematic or clinical speciality that help
reduce the consequences of clinical ignorance and omission. The capabilities Isabel
provides fill an important need in paediatric emergency medicine.”
Isabel the company was developed following a series of misdiagnoses of its CEO,
Jason Maude’s daughter, Isabel, who almost died at age 3 years of necrotising
fasciitis as a complication of chicken pox. The diagnostic tool was created with help
from paediatric intensive care consultant Joseph Britto at St Mary's Hospital in
London, who helped to save Isabel's life.
Jason Maude concludes, “ This funding gives Isabel Healthcare Ltd the opportunity
to better develop the tools that will help clinicians deliver care more efficiently. Isabel
is not designed to give the healthcare professional the definitive diagnosis, but to
remind them of potential alternatives which may be equally possible – all in a matter
of seconds and at the click of a button!”
Currently available for paediatrics, the funding paves the way for the development of
an adult version of Isabel, which will be launched later this year. For more
information on Isabel Healthcare Ltd, please visit: www.isabelhealthcare.com
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About Isabel Healthcare Ltd
Isabel Healthcare is a global leader in Diagnosis Reminder systems for physicians.
Isabel is an award-winning, clinical decision support system. Its unique feature is a
diagnosis reminder system, which instantly gives the physician a checklist of likely
diagnoses for a patient’s condition.
Using the same proprietary technology, which powers the diagnosis reminder tool,
Isabel mobilises knowledge to help physicians find relevant and specific answers to
clinical questions quickly and easily.
Isabel integrates knowledge from respected medical textbooks, annotated images
and journal abstracts categorized into, ‘What’s New’ and ‘Lessons Learnt from Error’
Algorithms, which are all linked together through comprehensive diagnosis
taxonomy. It has undergone a robust, peer-reviewed validation process to
demonstrate its accuracy and efficacy.
Isabel Healthcare's customer base includes hospitals in the UK and USA and it has
offices in London and Houston.
For more information on Isabel Healthcare Ltd, or to speak with a member of the
Isabel Team, please contact Blaise Hammond / Dan Alder on Tel: 020 8956 2709 or
email blaise@fusepr.com/dan@fusepr.com