PainChek has maintained strong growth momentum in recent months. As of 31st March, over 2.3 million cumulative pain assessments have been recorded, an increase of 115% from last year. 64,000 commercial beds in aged care have been contracted worldwide, with the UK experiencing rapid growth.
Several clients have published positive clinical outcomes, further supporting the growing body of evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of the PainChek® pain assessment solution in an aged care setting. Infant market and clinical research programs are underway, and the partnership with InterSystems, announced in November 2022, has resulted in two initial PainChek® international hospital pilots being negotiated.
“The strong growth across our markets reflects growing market acceptance of PainChek® as the new standard for pain assessment to improve pain management outcomes. Recent results confirm the achievement of two key strategic goals. Firstly, successful conversion of clients in Australia from government funding to commercial payment for licences; and secondly, the successful rapid scale-up in the UK, a new overseas market.”
— Philip Daffas, CEO and Managing Director, PainChek
Read on for more highlights below.
Residential aged care shows significant progress across all areas.
Australia & New Zealand: PainChek has 49,000 licenced commercial beds, of which 46,000 are implemented — an increase of 108% compared to last year. Over 500 aged care facilities in Australia use PainChek®, including some of the largest national providers such as Allity, Blue Cross, Baptist Care, Churches of Christ, Ozcare, and Anglicare. The PainChek clinical team has trained over 12,000 users and ‘train the trainers’ to assist customers in their transition to digital platforms in Australia and New Zealand.
UK: PainChek is experiencing rapid growth, contracting 15,000 beds in the most recent quarter, a 50% increase from the previous period. New clients using PainChek® include Harbour Healthcare, Greensleeves Trust, National Care Consortium (NCC), Silverline Care, and Scottish Technology Enabled Care. HC-One, the largest provider of care homes in the UK, will pilot PainChek® in Wales through the Gwent Regional Partnership board funding and new funding from North Wales Together (a group of Learning Disability Services supporting 200 people across the region in partnership with the Life Sciences Hub Wales) will support an independent validation of PainChek® for people living with learning disabilities.
North America: PainChek has regulatory clearance in Canada, and the initial residential aged care agreements will be implemented in May 2023. These will be PainChek’s first commercial clients in North America, further supporting global expansion. PainChek plans to enter the US market in 2024 with FDA approval, and the integration agreement with PointClickCare will provide a pathway to more than 10,000 nursing homes and 1,000,000 residents in the US and Canada. The partnership with InterSystems will also provide middleware and EMR integration into the US and global hospital market.
Japan: PainChek is communicating with the Japanese regulatory authorities (PMDA) to determine the regulatory process and requirements. Two potential Healthcare Professional groups have been engaged to provide the required clinical data for the regulatory process.
Integration partners supporting better patient outcomes
PainChek now integrates and works with aged care management and medication management systems covering more than 1,500,000 aged care beds across Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and North America. Integration with these partners supports the drive to improve clinical care, eliminate duplication of effort, and optimise medication management.
Successful clinical outcomes published by clients
Rollout of PainChek® in Orchard Care Homes leads to improved pain management and reduction in medication usage
The successful rollout of PainChek® across 24 Orchard Care Homes and 1,365 beds in the UK has significantly improved pain management outcomes, including:
- +100% increase in the frequency of pain assessments
- +50% increase in residents receiving regular pain relief due to newly identified pain
- -50% reduction in distressed behaviours associated with pain
Additionally, there have been medication and quality of life improvements, such as:
- -33% reduction of antipsychotic drug use (46% stopped use)
- -29% reduction in the use of Benzodiazepines & PRN (46% stopped use)
- -92% reduction in reported safeguarding incidents
*Data collected between March 2020 & September 2021: 18-month case study
Read more on the study here
280+ residents benefitting from PainChek® at Ryman Healthcare
Ryman Healthcare has been using PainChek® in its Victorian villages since August last year and has since conducted over 2,300 pain assessments with more than half of the residents in its high-care units.
Ryman’s Clinical Quality Business Partner, Marion Roberts, said PainChek® has
“become an important tool in ensuring residents receive the highest quality care. There’s a whole range of reasons why people can’t communicate their pain, but with this app, it cuts through all those barriers. Outcomes data being presented and published by a range of our clients are key drivers of business growth by validating that better pain assessments and pain management is helping to optimise pain medications, reduce the use of antipsychotic medications and reduce the number of falls within the aged care sector. These outcomes are being recognised by governments and Aged Care clients both in terms of funding allocations and focus for their care planning within the aged care sector.”
Read the full article here
Sir William Hudson Memorial Centre shares the positive impact of PainChek®
At the core of PainChek’s mission is to improve the lives of those who cannot reliably communicate their pain. Debbie Payne, who has over 30 years of experience in aged care management for nonprofit and for-profit organisations, recently shared her experience using PainChek® at Sir William Hudson Memorial Centre.
“Clinical assessments [conducted by] our Registered Nurses have improved dramatically, we’ve had PainChek® for nearly two years now. You can see huge growth in their clinical assessments, the treatments of pain, and their clinical skills.”
Read the entire case study here
Global-focused hospital partnership launches at HIMSS conference
Last month, InterSystems and PainChek partnered to launch their global hospital-focused collaboration at the HIMSS Global Conference in Chicago. The conference, which attracted 40,000 attendees, provided an opportunity to demonstrate the integration of the PainChek® Adult application with the InterSystems TrakCare EMR (Electronic Medical Record) to global hospital executives and potential partners from across the US, Europe, South America, and Asia. The event resulted in identifying new partners and clients, and reconnecting with other significant players that were in place before the COVID-19 pandemic. The partnership with InterSystems has generated two international hospital opportunities (in Europe and Asia) to commence a hospital-wide PainChek® pilot programme.
In June 2023, PainChek will be a speaker and demonstrate our technology at the InterSystems Global Summit in Miami. More than 1,000 InterSystems global clients will attend this conference.
ANZ & US: Ongoing research for PainChek® Infant
PainChek is conducting a market research project to evaluate the potential for PainChek® Infant in the direct-to-consumer (parental) market. The project looks to define the core addressable market, understand its behaviour, needs, and challenges, and establish an effective go-to-market strategy.
PainChek is awaiting ethics approval to conduct a study assessing the validity and reliability of PainChek® Infant for assessing pain in toddlers aged 12-36 months. Discussions are also continuing to complete a cross-validation study of PainChek® Infant with researchers from Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. The primary aim of the study will be to address where the performance of PainChek® Infant is influenced by race/ethnicity.
Technology development and regulatory clearance
A technology upgrade is planned for completion in July 2023. This upgrade expands PainChek’s capability to not only service mobile platforms but also embedded computer platforms and broaden access to virtual care usage.
PainChek is pleased to announce that it has successfully passed the Medical Device Single Audit Program (MDSAP) and obtained the MDSAP certificate issued by TÜV SÜD, one of the recognized Auditing Organizations. The Medical Device Single Audit Program (MDSAP) is a rigorous audit process that allows recognised Auditing Organizations to conduct a single regulatory audit of a medical device manufacturer that satisfies the compliance requirements of ISO 13485 and of the regulatory requirements from participating authorities of the United States (FDA), Australia (TGA), Japan (MHLW/PMDA) and Canada (Health Canada). By successfully passing the MDSAP audit, PainChek has demonstrated that its Quality Management System meets the strict regulatory requirements for the design and development, production, and distribution of pain assessment software.
To learn more about how PainChek® could enable best-practice pain management within your organisation, book a one-on-one session with a member of our team.
