Bleepa® is a secure instant messaging system that facilitates the sharing and annotation of clinical-grade images. It is an app that provides safe and secure connection for medical professionals to view, annotate and share clinical-grade images over a phone, tablet, laptop, or desktop. It helps streamline patient care and speed up clinical decision-making by connecting all members of the clinical care team. It enables case discussion, second opinion services, e-referral management, and efficient multi-disciplinary teams.
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Bleepa® is the flagship product of Feedback Medical, a company headquartered in London with 20 years’ experience in the medical imaging sector, that has now entered India. Feedback Medical’s innovative medical imaging technology and digital platforms support healthcare professionals (HCPs) in clinical decision-making and help them achieve better outcomes for patients.
Recently, Feedback Medical conducted a survey across 200 plus HCPs in India to check on whether a digital solution such as Bleepa® would be welcomed and were encouraged by the response.
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The survey makes clear that HCPs in India are in step with their global peers and welcome the introduction of new medical technologies if they can help them discharge their professional responsibilities more efficiently. All HCPs want better treatment outcomes for their patients. As the treatment complexities rise for many diseases, the need for reaffirmation and reconfirmation of diagnosis and prognosis are issues where doctors may want peer reviews and group discussions. This is even more true for complex surgeries. Here, multi-disciplinary, geographically distant teams often have to get together to plan surgical approaches and pre- and post-operative protocols. It is not always possible for members to travel when needed or even talk when everyone is free. It is at such times that Bleepa® comes in to fill the gap, provide the connections, share data and information securely to all team members to ensure all parties have the right information at the right time for more effective clinical decision making.
Bleepa® connects to all DICOM-compliant radiology and cardiology imaging systems, such as MRI, CT, X-ray, angiogram, and ultrasound. It is a secure, encrypted, zero-footprint application, which means that no patient data is stored locally on any device.
Bleepa® is currently being piloted in Odisha, alongside the BleepaBox, a small tablet device that connects to the hospital imaging machines via a mobile network, as part of its tuberculosis (TB) screening programme. The images from these machines are transferred to the BleepaBox and then automatically pushed to the doctor’s Bleepa® app. Doctors can review those medical scans on their app to form an opinion or share it with another medical specialist to discuss. The clinician can also send the image through Qure.ai’s AI-based chest X-ray interpretation software, which reviews the X-ray and sends back the preliminary results to the clinician within minutes.
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Dr. Cynthia, MD Physician from the Evangelical Hospital, Odisha, commenting on the benefits of the Bleepa® platform says: “The BleepaBox has proved to be a useful addition for the quick review of suspected TB patients in our hospital. Now our radiology team can share medical-grade images of a patient’s chest X-rays with me in just a few minutes. I can check these immediately on my mobile phone using the Bleepa clinician app and give my opinion without delay. If I am not available for some reason, the X-ray can be scanned through the AI-linked platform Qure.ai, which interprets the X-ray and sends its results to the hospital and to me. The hospital staff are learning to use this new technology and once fully proficient will enable us to identify more TB cases in less time, start treatment early and save more lives
Dr Nibedita Paramanik, Medical Director, Evangelical Hospital, Odisha further added, “The Bleepa Box which was installed at our hospital a few months ago, has helped us provide quicker identification of TB patients. The box is connected to the X-ray machine in our radiology department and a patient’s chest X-ray is sent directly from here to my Bleepa clinician mobile app. I can check it immediately, provide a prompt opinion, and start the patient’s treatment without wasting any time. The technology has also helped other clinicians in the general surgery and orthopaedic departments, in cases where they need to check an X-ray before deciding on the line of treatment for their patients.”
As India moves towards its commitment of providing universal healthcare to all citizens by 2030, there is a need to build a robust healthcare infrastructure which is accessible and resource efficient. Digital solutions like Bleepa® can make efficient case discussion and early treatment initiation a reality for patients and HCPs, and support healthcare delivery across the remotest parts of the country.
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Bleepa® has been designed by professionals working in real-life medical environments; technology and healthcare IT specialists in close cooperation with clinicians, researchers, and radiologists have worked together to develop Bleepa®. In the pilot studies conducted in the UK, Bleepa® reduced referral response times on average from 7.5 minutes to less than one minute per patient referral; and improved the time taken for the receiving team to start to review the referrals on average from 2.1 days to within 0.4 days.
It is UKCA accredited as a medical device for use in the NHS in the UK. It adheres to the ISO 13485 quality standard, ISO 27001 information security and Cyber Essentials Plus security standards.
For more information about Bleepa®, please visit https://bleepa.in or contact sales@bleepa.com.