Mana Medical

Last updated on

Visit website

NHS Problem

Rheumatoid Arthritis is a chronic condition that affects 700,000 people in the UK alone. The disease is characterized by flare-ups of pain and fatigue, with an annual UK economic burden of £3.8-4.8 billion, of which over £0.5 billion is directly attributable to the NHS. Insufficient and excessive physical activity—or rapid fluctuations between the two—can trigger flares and accelerate disease progression. Despite this, only 20% of patients engage in regular physical activity. Meanwhile, clinicians face infrequent appointments, limited consultation times, and the absence of continuous, objective measures. This results in suboptimal care and difficulty tracking disease progression, impacting patient outcomes.

The Solution

For patients, we plug directly into any wearable a patient has, combining this data with PROMs and Machine Learning to enable truly personalised insights into disease activity and the optimal level of physical activity to maintain health. These recommendations are adjusted daily based on live physiological signals and timely, real-time nudges are served over a given day to prevent exertion extremes that drive the onset of pain and fatigue (“pacing”). For clinicians, our tool provides consolidated real-time data and AI-driven stratification to triage high-risk patients and ultimately support in-the-moment clinical decision-making. 

Impact

700,000 patients are living with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in the UK, with 27,000 new diagnoses annually. The direct cost of musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions to the NHS was estimated at £10.2 billion. We will power the following benefits: 

  1. Promoting better care: Better self-management and rapid clinical insights into symptoms enable timely medication adjustments, slowing disease progression. Patients with severe RA incur direct healthcare costs of £4000-£6000 annually, compared to £1,000-£1,700 for those with mild disease. Our intervention could prevent progression, saving up to £5,000 per patient annually. Further savings could be achieved if accounting for the reduction in A+E attendances and surgical interventions.  
  2. Reducing Patient Contact: Facilitating remote follow-ups instead of in-person appointments can save substantial costs. In 2020/21, 1.1 million face-to-face rheumatology appointments cost £232 million. Enabling remote reviews could save up to £61 million annually. Additionally, reducing follow-up frequency by improving self-management from every three months to 12 months could achieve further savings of £255 million.  
  3. Saving Staff Time in Clinics: Automating disease assessment forms could save roughly 68,700 hours of clinical time in adult rheumatology appointments annually, allowing healthcare professionals to focus more on patient care.