| Company name: | TCC Casemix | Contact name & Job Title | Matthew Bacon, Chief Executive. |
| Project title: | Clinical monitoring in the NHS and further growth opportunities | Month/year | May 2023 |
| Style of case study: | Written | Account Manager | Teresa Smith |
| Case study owner/ writer/producer | Sam Burbage | Third party assigned? |
| The background to the case study / Storyboarding |
| TCC-CASEMIX Limited was conceived to address the substantial inefficiency of surgical services delivery in England. In seeking to mitigate the ‘bow-wave’ of demand from COVID-19 on the NHS, all other healthcare needs have largely been considered as a second order priority, nowhere is this seen more acutely than in elective surgery.
Even before the pandemic, elective surgery was becoming an increasing burden on the health system, with a backlog running into millions of patients. If there is one service above all that needs to be reset, then it is surgical services delivery. |
| The challenge / trigger event / the service, product or project in question |
| TCC Casemix wanted to develop a novel hardware and aligned software device that will enable theatre nurses to interact hands-free with a survey tool to record ‘real-time’ surgical procedure data. |
| The solution |
| An Innovation Adviser approached TCC Casemix, and through the Medilink Midlands ACTIS project, part-funded through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), was able to support TCC Casemix in several ways. This has included dedicated one to one support, an Innovation Support Grant and introducing TCC Casemix to new connections and contacts. The Innovation Adviser has also made the company aware of relevant funding opportunities, including the East Midlands Academic Health Science Network’s Evaluation Fund, and has invited the company to give their views on the future of the Midlands Medtech sector as part of a regional consultation. |
| The results / evaluation |
| Since receiving Medilink support, TCC Casemix has worked with The Northern Care Alliance (NCA) and with Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust, looking at issues with surgical listing. The company has also gone on to apply for and win an Innovate UK Smart Grant and SBRI funding for an innovative PredictOR Carbon Analytics program. This is a carbon registry to help clinicians and patients reduce carbon emissions in surgical pathways.
TCC Casemix is now also working with start-up manufacturers in general surgery and orthopedic surgery. TCC-CASEMIX Ltd has achieved this by establishing a TCC-Real World Evidence Centre in Central Europe. Through this Centre, where it has deployed its highly innovative TCC-CASEMIX® Technology Platform supported by the world’s first medical device information system, it is able to routinely acquire performance data along the whole surgical pathway, every day of the working week. Further network centres are being planned in the UK and in South Korea. It is anticipated that the first UK one will come online in June-July 2023. |
| Medilink Midlands’s role/Quote from the company |
| “Medilink Midlands’ support has enabled us to sustain our business. Receiving ACTIS support was foundational for that and enabled us to develop the technology. The innovations have opened up substantial opportunities and we have also been able to employ staff and operate from new offices. The technology we have invested in enables us to ‘punch far above our weight’.
Our services are second to none. The technology infrastructure that we have created has meant that we can serve the medical device market in Ireland, as well as mainland Europe.” Matthew Bacon, Chief Executive, Conclude Consultancy. |
| Medilink Midlands’s role/Quote from the Advisor | |
| “TCC Casemix’s technology is truly innovative and fulfils a real clinical need. As well as helping the company itself to grow, software such as this helps to ease the pressure in clinical settings and optimises efficiency. This, in turn, helps the NHS cope better with any surges in demand and by expanding further into their PredictOR Carbon Analysis program, TCC Casemix is also helping the NHS on their way to Net Zero. Medilink Midlands champions sustainability in healthcare and this is a prime example of this.” Teresa Smith, Innovation Advisor | |
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| Environmental and Corporate Social Responsibility | |
| Since receiving ACTIS Support, TCC Casemix has also gone on to apply for and win an Innovate UK Smart Grant and SBRI funding for an innovative PredictOR Carbon Analytics program.
PredictOR Carbon Analytics will create a Carbon Registry to provide clinicians, patients, procurement teams and surgical services managers with access to actionable information on the carbon, energy and waste impact of surgical pathways. Clinicians and patients will be empowered to make informed, shared decisions on treatment options, with a clear view of the carbon impact of each alternative. This is achieved by overcoming issues with current datasets which have not been collected in consistent, standardised and systematic ways. |
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| Additional information |
| The TCC Casemix innovation is a total digital pathway through surgery, enabling fully structured data to flow with the patient. This technology enables real-time data acquisition in surgery. It enables full traceability of implantable medical devices. Datasets are pushed to local registries connected into a regional network of interconnected registries across Europe. These contain datasets of medical device performance in the context of patient comorbidities enabling hospitals and surgical teams to improve accuracy of operation timing and anticipate potential problems.
The data processing portal directly addresses patient needs for information and data and is designed and configured with patient input to ensure health equality and address health inequality. TCC Casemix’s commercial relationship with device manufacturers enables NHS trusts to gain free access to analytics and so deliver better patient care. The data processing portal correlates all surgical risk factors with the corresponding impact on surgical procedure duration – measured at a highly granular level. It means that rather than a ‘one size – fits all’ strategy, we forecast procedure duration that is unique for every patient. Achieving predictability of procedure duration is central to achieving a transformation in productivity because it means more patients can be placed onto a theatre list, without reduced incidence of cancellation. This increases the number of cases treated, aiming to reduce waiting lists particularly for routine interventions. In our European partners, use of the technology has shown The impact is profound. We have created a new market with medical device manufacturers. They say they have seen nothing like this previously and it will transform their understanding of medical device performance. They will massively benefit because they are now also able to compare their performance with competitor products. It will transform patient informed consent – which currently is anything but ‘informed’ (as pointed out by Dame Cumberlege). It will achieve this through a Data Access Portal into a secure Open Registry Infrastructure that will provide a ‘lens’ on medical device performance across it, where each hospital deploys TCC-CASEMIX. We have commenced the first instantiation of the Open Registry Infrastructure. It is being deployed in the South-West of England. By Q2 2022, a parallel instantiation will be in Ireland. By Q4 2022 another will be established in Central Europe. We will then connect them together. We have an expert Advisory Board focused on cyber, data security and patient safety. The impact on the business will be substantial growth. This is because the whole vision is being funded by medical device manufacturers, who recognise the unique value proposition. Our work will lead to a whole new era of patient safety. The company was also shortlisted for, and won, a regional life sciences award for Delivering Innovation into Health and Care |
| Visual references/samples |
| Delivering Accelerated Data Acquisition Services for the Medical Device Start-up Business at No Net Cost – https://www.medilinkmidlands.com/delivering-accelerated-data-acquisition-services-for-the-medical-device-start-up-business-at-no-net-cost/
Transforming surgical productivity – https://healthinnovationexchange.org.uk/solutions/transforming-surgical-productivity TCC Publications Library – http://www.conclude.org.uk/publications/ TCC Case Study Library – http://www.conclude.org.uk/case-studies/ |