No matter from which angle you look at it, there is no denying that dementia is a heart-breaking disease. It was the focus during the G8 Nations Dementia Summit in London last week.
According to Alzheimer’s Disease International, a non-profit-making campaign group, 44 million people worldwide are currently affected by Alzheimer’s, which is the most common form of dementia.
It goes on to predict an increase to 135 million people worldwide by 2050. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the global cost so far of dementia is more than $600 billion. These statistics send alarm bells to governments across the world. Worse still, WHO confirmed that “we remain empty-handed with regards to treatments and cures”.
When one considers this, it is no wonder that the G8 nations have initiated serious attention to address the dementia challenges; in fact, it was the first summit related to an illness since HIV and Aids. It is therefore not surprising that, considering the success achieved over the years with HIV and Aids through much research and development, including networking between governments, clinicians and pharmaceutical companies, such a proven model is to be used again for dementia.
G8 nations have initiated serious attention to address dementia
Throughout the fight towards identifying medical solutions, be it for HIV, Aids or dementia, information technology also plays a key role and can take different forms to complement and assist clinicians, pharmaceutical companies and governments alike. Capturing pertinent data and hence building the necessary intelligence is just one key element.
Over the past years, the 6PM Group has focused and invested in research and development to create health-related products. The key to success to be able to offer innovative, new solutions to an ever more demanding health sector is to partner and work closely with specialised clinicians.
It is only through such close working relationships that IT business solutions can be successful. 6PM solutions are built by clinicians for clinicians and success is measured against enhanced patient care through Key Performance Indicators.
The 6PM Group, which supports over 14 NHS Trust hospitals in the UK, has entered into partnership with specific NHS Trusts. Our Climate-HIV solution was developed together with leading HIV clinicians in the UK and at the North Middlesex NHS Hospital Trust.
Climate-HIV offers HIV clinicians and specialised medical HIV supporting professionals the ability to offer enhanced care at higher efficiency levels. It is the latest, most advanced state-of-the- art solution for managing the treatment of HIV patients, as well as being compliant with the Health Protection Agency (HPA) in the UK. 6PM Group also partnered with the prestigious University College of London Hospital and its three leading stroke clinicians to build a solution to enhance the care of stroke patients in their initial and most critical four-hour period from any stroke symptoms.
A number of months ago, we partnered with West London Mental Health NHS Trust hospital together with their leading clinicians to work on a particular dementia research solution.
Closely working with clinicians, development is well under way so that the Trust is able to collate dementia-related information regarding diagnosis, treatment, demographics and clinical assessments. This system will then allow hospital trusts to better prepare for research studies and to be able to better attract funding from pharmaceutical companies. This initial phase of the project will be followed with additional functionality.
It is therefore encouraging to hear British Prime Minister David Cameron speaking at the G8 Dementia Summit that much more research and development funding must be found and provided by governments. It is with pride that 6PM Group, a Maltese company highly specialised in delivering health solutions to the UK NHS Trust Hospitals, is already in partnership with the UK NHS and developing phase 1 of a dementia research solution.
Peter Bugeja is chief operations officer, 6PM Group.