Inagene Diagnostics UK has been awarded a HSJ Digital Award for Improving Mental Health Through Digital.
Along with project partners Birmingham Women’s and Children’s FT, West Midlands Regional Genetics Laboratory and Forward Thinking Birmingham, they created an iPILOT for overcoming barriers to implementation of pharmacogenomics end-to-end service within the mental health clinical pathway, supporting medicines optimisation.
The complexity of mental health conditions, involving biological, psychological and social factors mean they can be difficult to treat, with patients trialling various medications before identifying a suitable treatment. Pharmacogenomics, the study of how a person’s genes affect the way they respond to medication, offers the potential to improve clinical outcomes, demonstrate cost efficiencies and reduce adverse events, say organisers.
The project aims to establish a mental health pharmacogenomics service, supported by a software reporting system, overcoming identified barriers to implementation in the real world NHS clinical setting.
Health Service Journal (HSJ) is a news and insight service for all healthcare leaders working in, for, or with the NHS. As well as news and insight, it provides expert commentary and analysis on the UK healthcare sector and are the only organisation that covers all aspects of publicly funded healthcare from health policy to acute and primary care, specialist services to mental health and commissioning to provision.
Find out more about the awards, here.