A new Health Innovation Hub will bring together partners from health services, academia, and the business sector to improve healthcare in Galway.
The idea behind the Health Innovation Hub is to take concepts for healthcare innovation from frontline workers – doctors, nurses, and porters, whether they’re for new services, products, or medical devices.
The HIH then provides support from businesses in the health sector to take that idea and develop it from a concept all the way through to being fully implemented in the field.
In reverse, any company that has a product to enhance healthcare will be partnered with partnered with a medical team by the Health Innovation Hub to study it in a clinical setting.
The Health Innovation Hub in Galway is partnership between the the Saolta University Hospital Healthcare Group, NUI Galway, and the HSE, with Enterprise Ireland also taking part.
Aisling Dolan, Manager of the Health Innovation Hub in Galway, said: “We are delighted to have our new office here in the West, located at the Lambe Translational Research Facility on the grounds of University Hospital Galway and beside NUI Galway,”
“Providing access to both clinicians and academic experts in healthcare and medical devices. We have a full team in place and welcome innovative ideas from both healthcare individuals and healthcare companies.”
To spur that sense of innovation this September Health Innovation Hub Ireland is launching IGNITE 2018, a competition aimed at healthcare workers in the West of Ireland.
Individuals or teams can submit an idea an work with innovation mentors to develop them before they go before Dragon’s Den style panel of judges.
In November the winner and several runners up will receive funding to pursue their idea in collaboration with the Health Innovation Hub.
The national Healthcare Innovation Hub programme has also put out a call for start-ups and SME’s to develop healthcare products for the HSE’s project to ‘Enable Positive Aging’.
Submissions for the open call must be in by August 31.
The Galway Health Innovation Hub is also supported by NUI Galway, to build on the the health research and medtech innovation that thrives on campus.
Professor Lokesh Joshi, Vice-President of Research at NUI Galway, said, “Health Innovation Hub Ireland builds upon the fantastic networks already linking researchers, clinicians and companies here in Galway.”
“NUI Galway’s Business Innovation Centre – the technology transfer and entrepreneurial hub for the university, runs the BioExcel medtech accelerator programme and supports the innovation training programme BioInnovate Ireland,” said Professir Joshi,
“We look forward to partnering with the Hub to strengthen the supports for innovation in this space.”
The three pillars of HIH Galway are: an open door policy to any healthcare worker with an idea to improve patient care.
Connecting Irish businesses with Ireland’s leading healthcare professionals who will pilot and test innovative products, services and devices.
And ensuring that this innovation culture is embedded in every aspect of Irish healthcare.
