Optima Health, a leading provider of technology enabled corporate health and wellbeing solutions, has announced it has secured the first licence contract for its proprietary Digital Assessment Routing Tool (DART) with Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.
DART has been commissioned to support the safe and effective stratification of care for musculoskeletal conditions following a successful four-month quality improvement study conducted in collaboration with the Trust.
The study demonstrated positive outcomes across all measures which included patient safety, pathway efficiency, cost savings and patient and clinician satisfaction. The success of DART has created significant interest from other NHS musculoskeletal services, creating a new sales pipeline for Optima Health including application in the NHS to reduce patient waiting lists.
DART, Optima’s wholly owned tool, is DTAC (Digital Technology Assessment Criteria) certified, and is listed on the NHS Innovation Service. It’s a digital first point of contact for patients self-referring into a musculoskeletal pathway, providing an alternative to clinician-led triage.
Taking an average of eight minutes to complete, patients are assessed and routed to the correct type of care based on the urgency and complexity of their symptoms, following the “Getting It Right First Time” principle shown to improve patient outcomes and service efficiency.
DART has received significant investment and development by Optima Health, with validation completed in association with Queen Mary University of London leading to published papers in international peer-reviewed journals.
Jonathan Thomas, CEO of Optima Health said: “We are excited to announce this first licence today for Optima’s proprietary tool, DART. Whilst the value of this initial licence is not material in the context of the Group’s overall revenue and profits, it aligns with the Company’s growth strategy to expand into adjacent markets. Following the successful four-month quality improvement study, we have received significant interest from other NHS trusts and breaking into this new market, as planned, will provide a healthy new sales pipeline for Optima Health.”
