Sky Medical Technology (Sky) has been shortlisted for the Healthcare Project of the Year at the Bionow awards, for its work with Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust Maternity Unit with the winning project due to be announced on the 4th February.
The project submitted to Bionow highlighted the work between Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust’s Maternity Unit and Sky in preventing blood clots in high-risk pregnant patients.
Barnsley Hospital worked in partnership with Sky to carry out a pilot observational study to determine whether Sky’s innovative neuromuscular electrostimulation device, the geko™, was suitable for blood clot prevention in high-risk pregnant patients where the current standard of care is not suitable.
The current standard of care recommends anticoagulants or mechanical compression which cannot be used by some pregnant patients for a variety of reasons, including severe pre-eclampsia, where patients might need urgent delivery, or post-partum haemorrhage. Two percent of the overall patient population cannot be treated with this current standard of care.
As such Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust Maternity Unit worked with Sky to create a study focused on 90 patients who were contraindicated to the current standard of care. All 90 were prescribed the geko™, a small watch-sized device that sticks to the leg and increases blood flow, via painless electrical pulses, at some stage of labour – more than half were prescribed this as the only method of blood clot prevention (see poster).
Following the study Barnsley became the first maternity unit in the UK to adopt the innovative geko™ device, and two other hospitals have since followed.
Bernard Ross, CEO of Sky Medical Technology, comments: “It’s fantastic to be shortlisted in such a well-respected awards alongside a range of truly innovative healthcare projects. This shortlisting is a testament to the hard work of the entire team at Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust Maternity Unit and their willingness to trial and ultimately embrace the geko™ device.
“Deep Vein Thrombosis is the highest cause of maternal death in the developed world, so it’s essential that other maternity units follow the lead of Dr Mona Fawzy and her team in undertaking essential studies and adopting innovative methods of treatment, to ensure every pregnant patient has access to suitable blood clot prevention.”
“Congratulations to Dr Fawzy and the team at Barnsley Hospital and fingers crossed for a win on the night.”
