British Heart Foundation Innovation Fund opens for funding of up to £350k – HTN Health Tech News

Applications have opened for the British Heart Foundation’s (BHF) Healthcare Innovation Fund, looking to develop ways to transform the delivery of services for people with cardiovascular disease.

The fund is looking for ideas that identify unmet needs that require “further scoping and consensus building” around potential solutions, that have been “scoped by an appropriate group of stakeholders and are ready to be tested and evaluated in practice”, or that have already been tested locally and are ready to be scaled. “It’s important that your project considers patient involvement at all levels,” BHF notes, “from scoping to steering groups.”

Whilst projects can include collaborations with partners in the third sector or in industry, BHF states that the lead applicant or investigator “must be employed by an NHS organisation or UK academic institution”, specifically inviting applications from teams supported by regional innovation boards like health innovation networks.

The upper limit for funding is £350,000, although applications are required to meet a value for money criterion which will be assessed as part of the review process, and to provide “transparency of costs” including an itemised budget covering all anticipated project costs.

Applications close for this funding round at midday on 28 April, and BHF has provided more information for applicants in slideshow format here.

Innovations in cardiology from across the NHS

Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust has shared insight into an electrocardiographic imaging (ECGI) vest developed by their researchers alongside a research team from University College London, which sees electrical data from 256 sensors combined with MRI images to generate 3D digital models of the heart and its electrical activity.

A study by teams at Imperial College London and Imperial College Healthcare, and funded by the British Heart Foundation, has also developed an artificial intelligence-enhanced electrocardiography (AI-ECG) model with the potential to identify female patients “who could benefit from enhanced risk factor modification or surveillance” in relation to elevated cardiovascular risk.

The British Heart Foundation recently awarded nearly £230k to University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, for their Appitrator app, supporting “personalised medication recommendations”. According to the trust, the funding will help to further develop an algorithm they have created, which records “key patient data” such as blood pressure, heart rate, weight, and potential side effects and then uses that information to generate personalised medication recommendations. The trust notes that the ultimate aim of this project is to turn their algorithm into a “user-friendly smartphone app” which will allow patients to “manage their symptoms and receive better personalised care”.