Digital Health and Care Wales (DHCW) has announced a new partnership with Life Sciences Hub Wales designed to “drive healthcare advancements in Wales through digital innovation”, with a series of events planned to promote knowledge exchange and collaboration between academia, industry, and healthcare providers.
The partnership aims to tackle challenges identified across health and care; empower health professionals with the use of innovative health tech; encourage the co-creation of digital health technologies; contribute to job creation and skills development in Wales; and harness “the power of big data” to drive improvements in personalised care.
Cari-Anne Quinn, CEO of Life Sciences Hub Wales, comments that the partnership will create “a dynamic and collaborative environment” with the potential to improve outcomes for patients and for professionals”.
The first event, ‘Big Data, Bigger Picture’, is set to take place in January 2025.
Spotlight on digital transformation at DHCW
Earlier this year DHCW published its organisational strategy for 2024-2030, framed around five key missions: to provide a platform for enabling digital transformation, to deliver high quality digital products and services, to expand the digital health and care record and the use of digital to improve healthcare, to drive better values and outcomes through innovation, and to be a trusted strategic partner and a high quality, inclusive and ambitious organisation.
In the last couple of months, the organisation issued a prior information notice for a software solution to extract patient data from GP systems for secondary uses and direct care purposes; shared plans to procure a new commercial, off-the-shelf digital maternity solution for NHS Wales; and issued a contract notice for a Network as a Service (NasS) solution worth in excess of £2 million.
It also announced the pilot of a new digital service designed to provide a central platform for Welsh Health Boards to allocate places for routine NHS dental treatment at Powys Teaching Health Board, aiming to tackle “significant variation” between Health Board allocation of NHS dentist places.
The wider trend: health innovation
Let’s take a look at some of the top stories on health innovation from the last month.
New strategies were released from Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust and Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, each focusing on driving innovation culture and utilising tech to improve outcomes for both patients and staff.
The UK government awarded £12 million in funding for projects utilising innovative technologies such as AI, VR and wearable sensors in supporting people with drug addictions and reducing drug-related deaths.
Be sure to join us for a panel discussion on connecting universities and health tech, scheduled for the 19 November, which will share research, approaches, outcomes, learnings, and findings from translating research into practice.
