Health Innovation Manchester (HInM) has published a new three-year strategy, outlining priorities for delivering innovation across Greater Manchester, focusing on optimising digital and data products, integrated collaboration, and enhancing the region’s ability to deliver innovation in health.
The strategy focuses on four strategic objectives, which include addressing high priority drivers of population health by deploying proven innovations at scale; promoting accelerated access to novel innovations; optimising digital and data products and services to help improve understandings of population needs, as well as to develop new models and pathways; and working with partners to enhance the GM system’s capacity and capability to deliver health innovation and demonstrate impact.
Ben Bridgewater, chief executive, highlighted that due to “considerable financial, operational and clinical pressures”, the need to innovate “has never been more pressing to address the biggest drivers of population health”; committing to ensuring that “groundbreaking research from both the academic and industry sectors plays through to deliver better outcomes at scale”.
The strategy itself is broken down into four key elements to success: integrated governance, integrated capabilities, industry partners, and an “unrelenting focus on method”.
A core component of integrated capability is HInM’s collaboration and “blended innovation activities” with the Manchester Academic Health Science Centre, the NIHR Applied Research Collaborative and the GM NHS city region digital transformation office.
HInM also notes the importance of developing compelling partnerships with industry, recognising that major innovation supply chain opportunities for health and life sciences are coming from the pharma, biotech and digital industries, and looking to deliver benefits to industry, local people and the health economy.
By focusing on method, the strategy details how HInM plans to “place data and digital approaches at the heart of everything we do”, ensuring its work is “overseen by robust assurance and measurement of impact”.
Case studies from HInM’s previous work include the development of a new model of care to deliver 1000 virtual ward beds across GM, the deployment of the GM Care Record for 2.8 million people to enable data sharing for direct care, secondary uses and research, and the development of a new tech enabled model of care to deliver health checks for people with severe mental illness.
Further, GM’s secure data environment is highlighted as an important part of enhancing EPR capability across the region, providing “the infrastructure and analytical tools for artificial intelligence development, clinical trials, real world studies, translational research, epidemiological studies and health systems research”.
To learn more about the new strategy from Health Innovation Manchester, please click here.
Late last year, we spoke with Cara Afzal, programme director for data and digital at Health Innovation Manchester, about her journey and experiences with digital in healthcare.
Elsewhere, we recently covered the announcement that SBRI Healthcare and the Health Innovation Network had awarded £885,000 to nine innovations with a focus on improving children and young people’s health.
