Embracing healthcare technology and innovation 

The Embracing healthcare technology and innovation conference took place in London on Wednesday 11 February and was organised by the SDO Network and the NHS Technology Adoption Centre.

The aim of the conference was to raise awareness of the most effective ways of adopting new technologies and innovative services and overcoming barriers and challenges arising in the process.

Presentations from the event

The presentations from this event are now available to download.

Conference Report

A full report from the conference is now available to download

Summary

Some of the key issues raised by Prof Trisha Greenhalgh at the conference included:

• Introducing a new conceptual model to support understanding of how new medical technologies are adopted in real world NHS environments.  This ‘triple helix’ model described the complex interplay between social structures, people and the technologies themselves.  Trisha argued that top down linear approaches to the implementation of new technology that ignored the organic nature of how the NHS works would run into significant problems, the national programme for IT and Choose and Book being cases in point.     
• Trisha’s take home message from the conference was to use the model to produce simple, practical advice for practitioners, managers and all change agents so they could more effectively overcome the challenges they faced.

Key issues from Brian Ibell, Dr Stuart Gold and Sally Chisholm presentations include:

• A key support to creating an innovative culture within the NHS is the ability to effectively link the people with ideas to people who can make things happen (who are often senior managers), whilst also ensuring that both managers and clinicians are fully engaged from the outset.

The Embracing healthcare technology and innovation event was the first event run by the NHS Confederation which has been viewed by a virtual community. 

The event was screened in Second Health by a total of 74 people, 36 of them staying for longer than 50 minutes. 

Virtual delegates included people from 12 different countries including: Finland, Singapore, USA, Canada, Norway, Italy, UK, Sweden, New Zealand, Turkey, Serbia, and Australia.

Download a map of the geographic location of these delegates.

As a first attempt of using this new media it was reasonably successful. Areas to improve include improving the sound quality for virtual delegates and interaction between the virtual community and delegates present at the conference venue.

A full report of the event will produced by the York Economics Consortium and this will be emailed to all delegates at the end of the month.

SDO Network

Find out if your Trust is a member of the SDO Network, if its not and you would like to join the Network please complete an application form.

The NHS Technology Adoption Centre

IF you would like to know more about the work of the NHS Technology Adoption Centre and the implementation of innovative medical technologies in the NHS please visit the NHS Technology Adoption Centre website.

The NHS Technology Adoption Centre is currently selecting the next phase of its projects and is holding a Technology Review Event in Manchester on 8 April 2009, if you would like to be involved in the review process please contact Gareth Redmayne (Gareth.Redmayne@cmft.nhs.uk) or call him on 0161 276 5263.