Towards a Digital Future in Healthcare

Yinka Makinde, Programme Director for DigitalHealth.London and Jenny Thomas, Programme Director for DigitalHealth.London Accelerator on their excitement ahead of the launch of our 2019 Impact Report, looking back over the last 12 months and beyond. 

DigitalHealth.London is entering its fourth year. In years one and two we focussed on creating an active digital health market in London by removing some of the hurdles and blindspots that were holding innovators back from thriving within the health and care market. We have supported 780 companies in total, 61 of these through our flagship 12-month Accelerator programme.

In the last 12 months the team has sought to focus and enhance our impact on the spread and adoption of these innovations by directly supporting those individuals across health and care charged with implementing and driving the uptake of innovation. Over 400 NHS ‘agents of change’ have been positively supported through our capability and collaborative programmes. A further 21 companies came through our Accelerator doors.

This year saw us grow in geographical reach beyond the boundaries of London. We are assisting four regions outside of London to run their own Accelerators and support a further 13 companies. In addition, following the very positive results of our digital outpatient workshops in London, we coordinated four regional engagement and learning workshops in partnership with the other twelve Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs) across the country. These brought NHS Improvement, NHS England, health and care stakeholders and suppliers together to accelerate the implementation of digital solutions that can improve the experience and efficiency of outpatient pathways.

Significant new partnerships were also created in the last twelve months. Firstly, the UK Israel Dangoor Health Initiative, a DigitalHealth.London partnership with the UK Israel Tech Hub, IBM, and the Dangoor Foundation, is designed to identify and support highly promising start-ups in Israel that have the potential to meet care needs in the UK. Secondly, we formed a partnership with RYSE Asset Management, a fund management firm with an appetite to invest in the sector to help the best companies to remain sustainable. This partnership has already directly helped seven digital health companies access venture funding.

DigitalHealth.London was originally set up with the ambitious, yet generic, aim to ‘build a digital health capital’ in London. As we have developed and started to mature over the last three years, we have come to realise that it is not enough simply to focus on the suppliers – the digital innovators with solutions to sell to the health and care sector. An equal level of investment (if not more) must be made in supporting our provider and commissioner stakeholders (the buyers) to find, interface with, and adopt the new technologies.

We believe it is this combination of support that will unlock the huge potential benefits of digital within the health and care sector and take us towards a digital future in the NHS. We are poised to make this happen.

You can learn more about how DigitalHealth.London is starting to generate proven cost savings to the health and care sector, and deliver significant patient benefits, in our Impact Report, which will launch soon. View a preview.

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