A cornucopia of events and opportunities (UK/EU)

March 1, 2017 | by

This editor has been extremely busy of late representing DHACA members’ interests in Brexit discussions, finalising RSM events and researching technology to help carers. However the requests to promote events have continued to arrive so here is a very brief summary:

Innovate UK is looking for new assessors – click here for more information.

On 7th March ADASS is holding its Care Apps Showcase and Conference event in Central Birmingham. Book here.

The Wearable Technology Show is on 7th & 8th March at Excel, and for the first time will include within it the Digital Health Technology Show. This editor is presenting. Readers can get free entry to the exhibition and cut-price entry to the conference sessions (quote DHTDHAC17).

On 23rd March, the London Health Technology Forum has its annual pitch session. If you fancy trying your hand at pitching your start-up, or your new idea, we want you! There’s no guarantee that winners will get funded. However there are lots of finance people coming, and winners will certainly get some nice champagne…and bag lots of useful experience. Book here. Contact marie.carey@bakerbotts.com if you want to pitch.

The RSM’s Apps event is in its fifth year and on 4th April. We have a veritable constellation of who’s who in mHealth apps presenting this year: I hate the expression “must see” though it’s very appropriate in this case. Book here. These are incredible value events because one of the charitable objects of the RSM is education: compared with commercial events they are a steal, and the quality is superb.

PwC has a 13 week startup growth programme for revenue generating health companies, entitled ‘future of health’ starting 6th March. They still seem to be taking enquiries though, more details here.

Aging (sic) 2.0 has come to London and holds a global startup search event on 11 April. If you want to register on their startup database,  perhaps to participate in that event, go here.

The DigitalHealth.London Accelerator is now open again for applications. Closing date is 12 midnight on Thursday 20 April

EHTEL have their Symposium in Brussels on 15-16 March – apply here.

The RSM is working with the IET in partnership for the third year to offer you Future of Medicine; the role of Doctors in 2027 on 18th May with the now-expected array of iconoclastic presenters telling us how different the delivery of care will be in ten years. Book here.

More shortly.

Apps, apps, apps – health, care, wellbeing: must-reads for developers

June 28, 2015 | by

Last week we covered two calls for health & care app developers: the ADASS apps event, which is looking for apps presenters, and PatientView which is looking for developers’ feedback on what they need when developing health & wellbeing apps; today we focus on medical app news.

PatientView has just released the results of their previous survey entitled “What do patients and carers need in health apps – but are not getting?” This analyses the views of 1,130 patient and carer groups worldwide. The needs and challenges raised were then discussed in a multi-stakeholder meeting held to help define concepts for new apps that address patient and carer unmet real needs. An essential read for health & care apps developers.

Staying just a little longer on statistics, the CTIA resource library has some interesting primarily US-oriented items including a recent item entitled “One in Five US Consumers Use Mobile Apps for Exercise Tracking”.

As many will be aware, this editor has argued for 18 months now in these columns (& elsewhere) for an official approval process for medical apps that includes a measure of efficacy, so they can be compared, where appropriate, with other forms of intervention such as drugs (in the case of treatment for depression, anxiety and pain relief). Workstream 1.2 of the National Information Board has now published their roadmap (disclosure: this editor is on the Advisory Board of 1.2 and two others) which describes how they plan to tackle this topic.

At the same time MIT has now announced the establishment of the Hacking Medicine Institute. This will assess whether digital health products and services really work and, if they do, help them to prove their efficacy to consumers, doctors, and insurers, possibly introducing a little competition which should speed things up nicely. (For a more detailed review of the workstreams including DHACA’s involvement, go to the DHACA website blog – you will need to become a member if you aren’t already, however it’s free).

The Australians have also just produced the MARS (Mobile App Rating Scale) for ranking medical apps. They conclude that: (more…)

TSA Conference a great success (UK)

November 29, 2014 | by | 5 Comments

The two day 2014 TSA conference held at the Celtic Manor proved to be a great success for their new Chief Executive Alyson Bell who masterminded the event.

That this was to be a conference like no other was very apparent from the start when a solo performance from Gracie of the Zimmers opened the conference, followed by a performance by the whole group. Plenary sessions by luminaries in the digital health and care world followed, interspersed by refreshment breaks and a breakout session. Sir Bruce Keogh was sadly unable to attend in person though gave a hugely inspiring talk to camera encouraging all to use technology to deliver better care, more efficiently. (In a show of hands however, responding to a question from the conference chair, Nick Goodwin, the audience did not agree that Sir Bruce’s “fertile permissive environment for technology” was in place).

The other standout of the first afternoon was (more…)