The digital health agenda was in the spotlight recently at Rewired, one of the leading events aimed at connecting the diverse digital health community across the UK. The event brings together people from the digital health community – including NHS and social care, suppliers, start-ups, innovators, policy makers and patients – to network, collaborate and learn in-person during two days of educational conference sessions, exhibitions and meetings, all focused on sharing best practice and innovation.
Hosted by the health-tech publication Digital Health, Digital Health Rewired 2022 was held on 15-16 March at the Business Design Centre, London, with a vision to strengthen a digital future. The event showcased over 80 speakers, consisting of senior doctors, delegates, corporate executives and academics from across the UK and abroad.
Key themes covered throughout the event
The areas of focus this year were National policy, Integrated care, AI and data, smart health, digital transformation and digital nursing, each of which had a different stage and a comprehensive two-day schedule encompassing a range of talks and case study presentations.
The National Policy & Keynote stage was the highlight of the event with inspirational keynote sessions, workshops and leadership masterclasses by international and UK leaders. They discussed the latest policy and investment updates, covering lessons from the pandemic, NHS recovery, the Health and Care Bill 2021, data leadership in the NHS and integrated care.
The Integrated Care stage showcased talks from pioneering private healthcare teams about making integrated care a reality, with examples of work from across the country on delivering shared care records, population health, patient portals and remote care at scale.
The Smart Health stage explored the smart networks and IOT revolution, with day two including a focus on cyber security. The main takeaway was that software, data and sensors are getting increasingly embedded into networked medical equipment and the physical fabric of healthcare facilities, hence proving to be essential foundations for digital healthcare.
The Innovation stage was an avenue for innovative start-ups to present groundbreaking technology for digital healthcare. Lots of new start-up companies took the chance to present their projects and innovative ideas. Rewired Pitchfest, the popular competition connecting digital health start-ups and innovators with current NHS leaders and teams, was also brought back to this year’s event.
Focus on digital health
The Digital Transformation stage showcased the best examples of how digital is enabling health service transformation at scale in the NHS and internationally. NHS CEOs and other systems leaders shared their experiences of implementing successful digital transformation programmes.
The Digital Nursing Summit was a new addition for 2022, focusing on a range of work underway to ensure nurses at all levels take the lead in ensuring digital tools and services benefit all patients. The programme showcased digital nursing leaders, teams and initiatives from across the NHS. Ruth May, the chief nursing officer at NHS England, addressed Rewired for the first time and said she’d like to see a chief nursing information officer (CNIO) in every organisation to help drive the digital agenda.
The AI and Data stage brought together data scientists, researchers, clinicians, and health IT professionals to showcase how AI and data are transforming healthcare. Challenges and opportunities around research were discussed, with a spotlight on how analytical and predictive capabilities are harnessed to support care.
AI-driven healthcare
Chris Kelly, staff clinicians research scientist at Google, spoke at the stage about delivering better healthcare using artificial intelligence (AI) and explained the three main ways this can be achieved:
- Improving accuracy/efficiency – faster, cheaper, higher quality care through use of AI-enabled tools in screening and diagnostic pathways
- Enabling new models of care – bring care closer to the patient, with faster feedback loops, and easier adherence to onward investigations and treatment
- Personalised screening – maximising the efficiency of healthcare by prioritising our limited resources to those who are at highest risk
Professor Clive Kay, CEO at King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, spoke about King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust’s joint multi-million- pound electronic patient record (EPR) project nicknamed ‘Apollo’. He said that hospitals are not able to be run “safely” without an electronic patient record (EPR).
Andy Carruthers, CIO at University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, spoke about the trust’s journey with its next generation EPR, emphasising how collaboration was crucial as well as usability. He added that the trust is expecting to achieve HIMMS stage 5 by summer 2022 and then HIMMS stage 6 mid 2023.
How we can help
Citadel Health is a leading healthcare technology provider trusted by more than 80% of NHS organisations and is committed to its mission to connect healthcare diagnostics for clinicians and improve patient care globally.
The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has given medical institutions an insight into the future of healthcare through an accelerated adoption of technology. Here at Citadel Health we believe that AI, integrated diagnostics, connected radiology, remote working and RIS reporting will be huge trends we can expect to see in radiology in the years following the pandemic, as healthcare professionals trust tech to help them catch up with the backlog and provide seamless patient care.
We have also been awarded the contract to supply, install and provide maintenance of a Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS System) with Medicines Discovery Catapult (MDC) for its Lighthouse Lab in the UK. The Evolution vLab LIMS solution is being implemented at the Alderley Park Lighthouse Lab to process a range of sample types.
To learn more about how we can help you execute your vision of healthcare development contact us today.