The past few months have been rather busy for Florence Simple Telehealth (Flo), as various activities serve to accelerate the pace and scale of adoption of this technology which makes use of a mobile phone text service to communicate with the patient. Flo is used across the UK in general practice, community and hospital healthcare settings, and is now spreading to Scotland and attracting attention from even further afield.
SBRI Healthcare, an NHS England funded initiative to develop innovative products that address unmet health needs, today announced the 14 companies that will share £1.4 million funding to develop products that can significantly impact the increasing pressures being put on urgent and emergency care services.
Read "Funding boost for urgent and emergency care services from SBRI Healthcare"
WMAHSN is among the proud sponsors of this year's Birmingham Social Enterprise City Drive, a week of events raising awareness of social enterprises, which are businesses that trade for social purposes. iSE has prepared an amazing City Drive 2016 Final Programme, including an invitation-only dinner where WMAHSN stakeholders will be amongst the guests discussing "How does the social economy respond to the challenges of healthcare in the 21st century?"
Read "WMAHSN sponsors Birmingham Social Enterprise City Drive 2016"
The second special report of BQ (Business Quarter) Magazine, Healthcare and life sciences, has been published. Once again produced in partnership with the WMAHSN, the report explores the West Midlands’ health economy in all its forms. The report includes coverage of the WMAHSN Health and Wealth Economic Summit in October 2015, as well as the proceedings of the BQ Live debate, which counted George Freeman MP, Minister for Life Sciences, as guest of honour.
Read "BQ2 West Midlands Special Report on healthcare and life sciences now available"
This year, the third international conference on Well-Being is being held in Birmingham. The conference will explore the multi-dimensions of well-being, focusing on the achievement of well-being through collaboration to co-create experiences which are positive and meaningful to the individual. Abstracts are now being invited for posters, papers between 1500 and 3000 words and interactive workshops of 45 – 60 minutes each.
Read "Call for papers for international well-being conference in Birmingham"
The West Midlands’ Pharmacy Local Professional Network (LPN) is seeking four enthusiastic, professional leaders with the capacity to effectively influence and drive forward the agenda of the LPN.
The Business with Birmingham 2016 Innovation Competition has been approached by a number of companies in the last week asking for an extension to fine-tune their proposal. Applications for both categories must now be received by 5pm on Monday 4 April 2016.
Read "Business with Birmingham Innovation Competition extends deadline"
Health Education England's Genomics Education Programme is now accepting applications for funded places on the Masters in Genomic Medicine course and individual modules of continuing professional and personal development (CPPD) for the coming 2016/17 academic year.
Read "Applications for genomics Masters programme and individual modules now open"
Healthcare teams at University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust have launched an innovative approach to supporting patients by developing videos and Facebook groups for clinicians, providing patients with long term conditions with accurate and valuable self-care information. Part of a person-centred care project launched by the West Midlands Academic Health Science Network (WMAHSN) across the West Midlands, the closed clinical Facebook groups now cover atrial fibrillation (AF), multiple sclerosis, asthma and cardiac rehab care.
Read "Facebook and videos prove a hit for digital patient groups"
The government’s digital champion’s team is dropping in to Stoke-on-Trent on 16 March to see for themselves how technology enabled care services are enabling patients to take more control of their healthcare. The team works with Baroness Lane Fox of Soho, the founder of lastminute.com and the UK’s Digital Champion, who advises the government on how online public services delivery could help to provide better and more efficient services, as well as getting more people online.
Read "Government’s digital team visits Stoke-on-Trent to see how technology is enabling healthcare"
The Association of British Healthcare Industries (ABHI) and the national network of Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs), have announced work on a formal programme of activity between the two organisations. The work will lead to enhanced engagement between the AHSNs and ABHI’s 250 members. Early projects will include patient safety and plans to support the future sustainability of the networks. Joint events are taking place nationally and regionally.
A WMAHSN-supported programme is to be instrumental in a major research project which gets underway in April, aimed at tackling the long-term issue of miscarriages. The Comprehensive Unified Research (CURe) programme will be used by the National Tommy’s Centre for Early Miscarriage Care and Research (NEMC) to build a sophisticated database to support clinical researchers in collecting research data. The NEMC is the first in the UK and the largest in Europe.
More than 100 people from the NHS, academic and industry sectors packed out the Vox Conference Centre on 1 March for the launch of the Meridian health innovation exchange. It was standing room only as the audience gathered to hear a selection of speakers talk about the impact of healthcare innovation.
Senior NHS professionals discussed operational challenges and barriers to change facing the NHS at the first NHS Conference for Building Sustainable Healthcare, attended by 68 health service professionals and hosted by The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust. Key participants in the agenda included David Loughton CBE, Chief Executive of The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust, The Carilion Clinic, The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, West Midlands Academic Health Science Network and Robin Davis, Deputy Director of the NHS Elect.
Read "Senior NHS professionals say real-time visibility of beds is a priority"
In 2014, NHS England established an internal Research Needs Panel (RNP) to evaluate gaps in evidence that NHS England teams identified with the aim to support and promote the use of evidence-based decision-making in the NHS. The RNP aims to encourage an integrated and inter-disciplinary approach to support the Five Year Forward View priorities. NHS England now invites organisations, teams or unit to submit a policy or applied healthcare research need to the next Research Needs Panel, which convenes on 16 March.
Read "Call for submissions to the NHS England Research Needs Panel"
Coventry University is inviting applications for a Professor post to drive the strategic growth and development of research activity in the newly formed Centre for Technology Enabled Health Research (CTEHR), providing strategic direction, management and joint leadership within the Centre’s research themes - Innovation, Design and Technology.
Read "Coventry University seeks Professor in Technology Enabled Health"