Scaling Alvie's Digital Health Coaching & Specialist Support Programme

癌症的治疗是艰难的，经常需要经常去医院就诊，并导致健康问题。有健康问题的人患并发症的风险更高，导致计划外就诊和住院时间更长。专注于身体、营养和情绪健康的个性化健康改善计划，即所谓的康复，已被证明非常有益。然而，由于高昂的成本和不便，它们并不广泛使用，只有不到10%的患者可以使用。Alvie由一位在肿瘤学方面拥有丰富经验的癌症外科医生和护士于2019年创立，旨在改变这种情况。他们使用数字优先的方法来改善获得更好健康的机会，无论在哪里。Alvie提供为期10周的健康指导服务。每个患者都配备了真正的教练，并根据需要获得专业联合卫生专业人员(AHP)和护士的帮助。该计划已对800多名患者产生了积极影响，帮助他们变得更加活跃，减少焦虑，提高生活质量，甚至减少住院时间。Alvie的方法是独特的，因为它结合了专家指导和改变行为的策略，使每个人都更容易实现更好的健康。该公司已经与NHS、私人医疗保险公司和公司建立了合作伙伴关系，并发表了支持他们的方法的同行评议研究。但系统中存在一个瓶颈。C.40%的互动依赖于通过Alvie App和门户进行的实时视频对话，很难满足不断增长的需求。为了克服这一问题，我们计划从僵化的基于视频的咨询转向异步方法。我们已经开始使用聊天支持，但计划引入机器学习和大型语言模型来扩展这种方法，并显著扩大我们的覆盖范围。这一变化将使服务更有效率，还将打破地理和时间障碍，将医疗保健从集中式模式转变为以患者为中心、“随时随地”的模式。这一创新将改善患者的预后，并使专业的、经临床验证的支持广泛可用。这是迈向一个更以患者为中心、更容易接近的未来的一步。它还将促进扩展到癌症以外的其他医疗条件，例如心脏、复杂手术和手术准备/恢复。Alvie的目标是使医疗保健和支持变得可用，使人们能够优化他们的健康，并有一个更顺利、更好的康复。该项目是一种开拓、部署和测试新技术、收集数据并满足重大医疗保健和社会需求的方式，同时实现良好的健康结果和患者体验。

Cancer treatment is tough, often requiring frequent hospital visits and causing health problems. People with existing health issues have a higher risk of complications, leading to unplanned hospital visits and longer stays.Personalised health improvement programmes that focus on physical, nutritional, and emotional well-being, known as prehabilitation, have shown to be very beneficial. However, they are not widely available, with less than 10% of patients having access, due to high costs and inconvenience.Alvie, founded in 2019 by a cancer surgeon and nurse with extensive experience in oncology, aims to change this. They use a digital-first approach to improve access to better health, regardless of location.Alvie provides a 10-week health coaching service. Each patient is matched to a real coach, and needs-based access to specialist Allied Health Professionals (AHPs) and nurses.The programme has had a positive impact on over 800 patients, helping them become more active, reduce anxiety, improve their quality of life, and even spend less time in hospital. Alvie's approach is unique because it combines expert guidance with strategies for changing behaviour, making it easier for everyone to achieve better health.The company has formed partnerships with the NHS, private medical insurers, and corporations and has published peer-reviewed research supporting their approach.But, there's a bottleneck in the system. c.40% of their interactions rely on real-time video conversations through the Alvie App and Portal, making it hard to meet the growing demand.To overcome this, we plan to move away from inflexible video-based consultations to an asynchronous approach. We've already started using chat support but plan to introduce machine learning and large language models to scale this approach and significantly expand our reach. This change will make the service more efficient and also break down geographical and time barriers, shifting healthcare from a centralised model to a patient-centered, "anywhere-based" one.This innovation will improve patient outcomes and make specialised, clinically-validated support widely available. It's a step towards a more patient-centric and accessible future. It will also facilitate expansion into other medical conditions beyond cancer, e.g. cardiac, complex surgery and preperation / recovery from surgery.Alvie's goal is to make healthcare and support accessible, empowering people to optimise their health and have a smoother, better recovery. This project is a way to pioneer, deploy and test new technologies, collect data, and address a significant healthcare and societal need whilst simultaneously achieving great health outcomes and patient experience.