INNOVATION NATION
H
ealthcare systems worldwide are notoriously difficult environments in which to innovate. They are too big, too important, and too political to easily accommodate the freewheeling risk-taking that is core to a dynamic startup culture. However, the rigours of the SARSCoV-2 pandemic have revealed a remarkable ability in healthcare systems to transform fast and at enormous scale when confronted with a crisis. The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) is a prime example. An employer of more than 1.3 million people, it leveraged technology to pivot how it operates while simultaneously using its unique structure to stand up capabilities in clinical trials and genomic sequencing that were - and continue to be - of enormous benefit to the rest of the world.
Fostering innovation in the NHS is a hot political topic, and advancing technology forms a central thread in the Long Term Plan for the NHS, unveiled just months before the global pandemic took hold. In particular it aims to improve data sharing to help divest more control to patients and their communities. But while the coronavirus crisis has empowered backs-to-the-wall innovation in the NHS in the short term, how well placed is it now to maintain that momentum? Tech For Good sought the views of healthcare leaders both within the NHS and in industry to find out.
ISSUE 16
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