Health Innovation Hub Ireland (HIHI), the HSE and Irish College of GPs have launched a call for GreenTech in healthcare, aiming to identify products and services capable of promoting environmental sustainability in primary and secondary healthcare.
The call is open to all companies, researchers and institutions who can offer “innovative and scalable” solutions, and provide new practices and solutions capable of addressing the call’s key areas of focus. These are: sustainable production of medical products; greener disposal to limit waste from the healthcare industry; and “effective decontamination” of reusable invasive medical devices.
Successful submissions will secure project management and support, the opportunity to pilot and demonstrate impact and scalability, promotion of product and access to collaboration with established clinical, academic, public and private sector engagement.
The deadline to apply is 17 November 2024 at 5pm; click here to find the details in full.
Digital and the environment: the wider trend
In the spring HTN reported how SBRI (Small Business Research Initiative) Healthcare, in collaboration with the Greener NHS programme and the Health Innovation Network, awarded £3.2 million to 22 innovations designed to help “improve care and accelerate a greener NHS”.
We highlighted how North Bristol NHS Trust’s neurosurgery team at Southmead Hospital ran a ‘green operating day’ which saw a one-day trial run simultaneously across all neurosurgical theatres to explore how sustainably the operating list could be run.
Later this month, on 22 October, HTN will be hosting a virtual panel discussion on the role of digital in going green – click here to sign up.
Ireland in the spotlight
In other news from Ireland, we recently examined an announcement from minister for health Stephen Donnelly on the establishment of an online health taskforce with the aim of developing a public health response to the harms caused to children and young people by certain online activities.
We also explored HSE’s Digital Health Roadmap, which sets out a vision to create better health outcomes through a digitally enabled environment around six core principles: the patient as an empowered partner; workforce and workplace; digitally enabled and connected care; data-driven services; digital health ecosystem and innovation; and secure foundations and digital enablers.
And in the summer, HTN looked into Ireland’s new Health Information Bill 2024, designed to provide patients with increased access to their own information and providing a “clear legal basis” to establish a Digital Health Record across Ireland.
