On Wednesday, 5th February, ELAROS hosted a webinar on Digitally Supporting ME/CFS and Long COVID Services, bringing together key experts at a crucial time for the ME/CFS and Long COVID communities.

The event featured a presentation from Sarah Tyson (University of Manchester/ME Association) and Russell Fleming (ME Association), who provided an update on the development of a new clinical assessment toolkit for ME/CFS, created in collaboration with people with ME/CFS and clinicians working in NHS ME/CFS specialist services.

Román Rocha Lawrence from ELAROS led the session, presenting our proposal to support NHS ME/CFS services in partnership with The ME Association. This collaboration aims to offer early exclusive access to The MEA’s clinical toolkit through ELAROS’ digital platform, which has already supported tens of thousands of patients across 65 health organisations worldwide, as well as national research studies and service evaluations for NHS England and NHS Scotland.

We were also joined by Anna Gregorowski, Chair of BACME (British Association of Clinicians in ME/CFS), a multidisciplinary organisation dedicated to advancing ME/CFS clinical care in the UK. ELAROS is working closely with BACME to signpost its resources, ensuring they are more widely accessible to clinicians and patients through our digital channels.

This webinar followed our highly successful Building a Long COVID Service Legacy series, which has helped clinical practitioners and commissioners explore innovative case studies and digital tools to enhance condition-specific and integrated long-term condition (LTC) services.

The session was particularly valuable for clinicians, researchers, and commissioners working in ME/CFS services, as well as those in Long COVID care looking to expand their service offering to include ME/CFS support.

For access to the recording of the webinar, along with the slides, please get in contact with us at:
C19-YRS@elaros.com

We look forward to continuing these important conversations and driving innovation in digital health solutions for ME/CFS and Long COVID services.

In January, a team of nine ELAROS colleagues travelled to Italy for a four-day programme to meet with one of our longest-standing partners, Umbria Bioengineering Technologies—a leading Italian university spin-out with whom we have collaborated for over seven years.

Our partnership has been instrumental in delivering two ongoing EU Horizon 2020 projects, as well as the recently launched Innovate UK Exchange Programme. This latest visit, made possible through the guidance of our fantastic advisor, Simon Monaghan (Senior Innovation and Growth Specialist) and Innovate UK’s Business Growth Global Explorers programme, provided a valuable opportunity to further develop our commercial collaboration.

ELAROS and UBT worked together on consolidating commercial roadmaps for two innovative screening products—BrainWave and LungWave—which ELAROS will provide connectivity for. Discussions also focused on the €7 million MammoWave project, an ongoing collaboration with partners across Europe.

This visit reaffirmed the strength of our relationship with Umbria Bioengineering Technologies, and together, we have established a framework for a partnership that is set to thrive for at least the next 10 years.

A special thank you to Innovate UK’s Business Growth Global Explorers programme, which continues to be an invaluable resource for UK high-tech companies looking to expand their international collaborations.

We look forward to the future of this partnership and the exciting innovations ahead!

Last week, ELAROS colleagues Henry Robinson, Toby Boud and Oliwia Zwara had the pleasure of attending the Sheffield Hallam University Computer Science and Software Engineering Student Showcase.

This module has been part of a longstanding collaboration for ELAROS, where we provide a brief to three different groups of students to develop software based on one of our current digital solutions. This year, the focus was on our Open-OH project.

The event was a resounding success, providing us with the opportunity to engage with students about their experiences working on a project based on the provided briefs as well as connect with academic staff to explore potential collaboration opportunities.

The showcase also allowed ELAROS to explore the wide range of opportunities for research and innovation within the University and represent our organisation to a dynamic community of academics and students and other companies from the region. 

We are looking forward to returning next year with a new challenge for the students.

On Thursday ELAROS colleagues Román Rocha Lawrence and Henry Robinson attended the second NHS England Long COVID Conference in Edinburgh.

The conference featured a line-up of inspirational talks by clinical leads, researchers, allied healthcare professionals and thought leaders in the field, closed by Professor Manoj Sivan announcing the new Clinical Post Covid Society under the British Society of Physical & Rehabilitation Medicine (BSPRM).

Melissa Heightman also delivered an impressive presentation showcasing the Long Covid National Service Evaluation which was carried out using the digital C19-YRS.

ELAROS is proud to be a part of this collaborative network, including  all the colleagues in NHS which are supporting their patients living with Long Covid.

On Monday, ELAROS colleagues visited the University of Sheffield to talk to a group of Bioengineering students as part of their ‘Research Seminars’ module, kindly organised by Professor Chris Holland.

The talk consisted of our CEO, Professor Paul O’Brien telling the students more about the origins of the company and how it has grown over the past 12 years, and then colleagues Toby Boud and Oliwia Zwara, who are both ex Biomaterial and Bioengineering students, delved into the intricacies of some of our products, specifically our newest project, Open OH.

ELAROS is grateful to Chris Holland for inviting us back to this event for what is now the 5th time, and credit this opportunity with introducing us to a number of our staff members over the years.

Last week, two of our colleagues Toby Boud and Oscar Petherick had the opportunity to attend a Show and Tell event organised for the participants of the SBRI funding call ‘Increasing access to and capacity in Occupational Health’. The event took place at the Department of Health and Social Care and in attendance was the Minister of State for Employment Jo Churchill MP and the Minister of State for Health and Social Care Helen Whately MP, who opened the event and listened to all of the project team’s elevator pitches.

ELAROS colleagues presented our work on Open OH, a stand-alone app created to support people with Long Covid and other long term conditions with their symptom management and occupational health needs.

The event also included a fascinating Q&A session with industry leaders including Lanre Ogunyemi FFOM FFOMI FACOEM FRCPI, Shriti Pattani OBE and Professor Steve Nimmo, which allowed us to find out more about the occupational health service provision, and how best our products can aid this.

It was great day of networking, making meaningful connections, getting to see the exciting work that other projects are creating and demonstrating our own product.

ELAROS is grateful to SBRI for hosting such an insightful and collaborative event.