Digital

Harnessing the potential of healthcare data, alongside the development of new digital tools, including the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), is a focus for the AHSC. Capitalising on the richness of information routinely collected through patient’s interactions at their GPs or in hospital can improve effectiveness, safety and experience of care for patients. In addition, technology advances capturing health and activity indicators (wearables) might also inform disease prevention and early diagnosis interventions.

Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust have both invested in research informatics platforms that overlay their electronic patient record and adhere to the highest standards of data security and privacy. This research infrastructure and ongoing plans to increase its utility will underpin many of the AHSC’s planned projects and programmes going forward. 

In addition, iCARE, the secure data environment and analytics facility at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, supported by the NIHR Imperial BRC, also hosts the integrated primary and social care patient records for all residents in North West London – Whole Systems Integrated Care (WSIC) – enabling linkage of rich and deep acute hospital data with broader information for all 2.8 million residents in North West London for both direct care and research.

Another component of this digital ecosystem is the Imperial Health Knowledge Bank (IHKB), which maintains a consented database of patients and associated samples for research. Through iCARE, researchers can securely access IHKB data to support study recruitment and real‑world evidence generation.

Planned projects that will harness our digital capability can be found here.