HSC Industry Engagement in collaboration with Rachael Adams, Senior Innovation & HSC Market Development Manager from Innovation & Market Development Unit (IMDU), co-hosted a panel session and Q&A. It was a lively interactive session with great questions and participation from the audience.
The Innovation in Action session chaired by Barry Henderson, Senior Industry Manager, showcased exemplar innovation projects from across the HSC. During the session the panel highlighted different areas of innovation, some of the obstacles and challenges encountered and how they were overcome and how each was developed through engagement with the HSC.
Professor Mike Scott, Director of Medicines Optimisation Innovation Centre, explained the Health & Social Care Industry Partnership (HSCIP) Board process for selecting industry partners for NI-wide collaborative projects based on the identification of specific health needs by the HSC that require industry support. As part of the HSCIP, programme partners the Association of British Pharmaceutical Industries (ABPI) circulate a call to interested companies, so they have an opportunity to put forward proposals and HSC can have the widest possible choice of industry partners. Professor Scott said, “We work in partnership across the HSC to ensure we identify real areas of unmet need within the Northern Ireland healthcare system”.
Dr Mary Jo Kurth, Business Development Manager from Randox Laboratories Ltd. described working with C-TRIC C-TRIC and the WHSCT on a Urinary Tract Infection diagnostic test cartridge that uses a Vivalytic point-of-care instrument, which employs accurate PCR technology, providing results in 2.5 hours instead of the typical 3 days for routine culture. The UTI test, that requires less than half a teaspoon of urine, can be used by non-laboratory staff in the GP practice, care homes, pharmacies and hospital wards for example.
Dr Alexander Davey, Clinical Entrepreneur, Director Digital Care Systems & Anaesthetist in NHSCT, discussed his company’s application of natural language programming (NLP) to address inequalities and inefficiencies in critical patient assessment. He highlighted their flagship concept, CarePath-ASSIST, describing it as “AI for smart synthesis of information for safer treatment and screening around ischemic heart disease diagnosis and screening and treatment for perinatal PTSD”. Dr Davey has previously been awarded SBRI SBRI Healthcare - Home funding for his innovation.
As part of her role Rachael Adams, Senior Manager from IMDU manages the Health SBRI Programme in NI. She explained that there are a wide range of subject areas in health where health SBRI projects have previously been carried out, including mental health, stroke services and pain management. She announced that two new SBRI projects were due to commence in the NI Ambulance Service and Cancer Services. Rachael is also responsible for supporting the procurement of innovation and engaging with internal and external stakeholders across the region and beyond to achieve this.
The speakers discussed what they have learned through their involvement in innovation with the HSC suggesting innovators should engage early and often, innovators should ensure alignment with care pathways, make themselves aware of the research and governance requirements.
They also described some of the obstacles and challenges encountered and opportunities, including, access to anonymised data for developing research, funding for trials and investigations, mechanisms for entrepreneurial clinical innovation, the potential of Encompass, regulatory challenges, and the need for an Innovation Evaluation and Adoption Framework.
Barry Henderson welcomed the opportunity to participate in the session saying “These types of engagement sessions are vital if we in the HSC are to better understand unmet need through internal stakeholder engagement, but also identify appropriate solutions developed by industry and create effective pathways for their evaluation and adoption.”
From left Dr Janice Bailie (HSC R&D), Dr Alexander Davey (Digital Care Systems & NHSCT), Barry Henderson (HSC Industry Engagement), Dr Mary-Jo Kurth (Randox), Professor Mike Scott (MOIC), Rachel Adams (IMDU), Dr Julie McCullough (HSC Industry Engagement).