Outcomes Based Healthcare and Big Data Partnership have partnered up to raise £1 million for a project focused on saving the lives of diabetes sufferers. 

Medical advisory company Outcomes Based Healthcare and IT consultancy Big Data Partnership have secured a match-funded grant from Innovate UK for a £1 million project. 

The two organisations are working towards a more personalised, data-driven approach to improving health outcomes in people with diabetes.

Until now, big data and advanced analytics have been used in healthcare to predict cost of care, or chance of hospital readmission. The project aims to take this technology a step further, creating a dashboard that provides deep insights into disease progression, to enable doctors and patients to make better decisions about their health.

It will use data to accurately predict an individual’s outcomes and allow pre-treatment of medical complications that impact the lives of people living with diabetes, such as heart attacks, strokes, eye disease, kidney disease and limb amputations.

Rupert Dunbar-Rees, founder of Outcomes Based Healthcare said: ‘Healthcare systems are cracking under the pressure of ever-growing global health budgets, partly because we’re treating people with drugs and interventions, without being sure exactly who will benefit from any given treatment.

‘Applying data science and outcomes insight to healthcare systems can fundamentally disrupt current disease management, allowing greater precision in care delivery, and ‘pre-treatment’ rather than simply prevention.’

The project’s backers claim it is the first to link large amounts of health data and non-health data and analyse it using machine learning.

Mike Merritt-Holmes, CEO and cofounder of Big Data Partnership said: ‘Huge amounts of real data holds the secrets to many business and social challenges. We are thrilled to be able to apply the latest industry thinking and technology to big data from lifestyles, medication, environment and diet to discover a truly innovative way to approach healthcare.’

The diabetes prototype will be developed and tested by experts, commissioners, hospitals and GPs by Q2 2016. Once complete, the team plans to apply the approach to other diseases and patient communities.