Ireland – the latest country in Europe to move its healthcare system to the cloud – held its first Health Innovation Week from November 19 to 24, 2016 with speakers ranging from chief information officers in healthcare from the UK and Ireland, to patients and innovators.
Disrupting Healthcare Systems
Healthcare is (positively) disrupted when innovation is applied to the existing approaches, according to Richard Corbridge, CIO of Ireland’s HSE service and CEO of eHealthIreland.
With cochlear implants being a disruptive technology at multiple levels, Sound Advice was invited to present at the Innovation Showcase at the Science Gallery on November 23.
#innovation flowing yesterday 💡Exciting Day 2 ahead – good luck to everyone #eh2030 @eHealthIreland @HSELive @R1chardatron @GarethPresch pic.twitter.com/LbtNDwIJOx
— #WHIS (@HIC2016) November 23, 2016
Patients With Insights To Technical Innovations
Two fellow panelists, Dr Triona Sweeney and Sinead Murphy, presented their respective approaches to virtual speech therapy and epilepsy management in maternity settings, in a session chaired by Paul Connors, national director of communications at the HSE.
Brilliant story about virtual speech therapy initiative with amazing outcomes for patients #eh2030 @eHealthIreland pic.twitter.com/6rLf30da2N
— Joanna Smith (@joannamarysmith) November 23, 2016
Speaking About Bilateral Cochlear Implants
Joining this panel was timely, seven months after going bilateral with cochlear implants and acclimatising to a very new soundscape. A certain irony lay in remembering an earlier presentation at the same venue for the Open Health Data Night in January 2016 – with no idea that the second cochlear implant surgery would happen, just ten weeks afterward.
Telehealth was discussed as a means of reaching more patients over long distances: for instance, one cochlear implant recipient had a trans-Atlantic mapping session, or serving children with cochlear implants who receive auditory-verbal therapy through telepractice.
Already, telepractice and smartphone-based innovations are infiltrating healthcare tools, which are becoming patient-led as consumers manage their own personal technologies with a positive impact on their general health. Sound Advice, as a disruptive entity, fits into this digital environment with many #EH2030 attendees being informed about cochlear implants by the Channel 4 programme, “Breaking The Silence: Live” on TV the previous night.
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