The Digital Hub and St. James’s Hospital Foundation Announce Digital Award Winners
Connected Health was launched by The Digital Hub last year to support digital technology companies in the development of healthcare solutions. The St. James’s Hospital Foundation, meanwhile, aims to enhance the facilities, education and environment at the hospital and, as such, runs a small grants competition each year, open to all staff, for improvements and innovations within the hospital.
This year, the Foundation included a new category for digital initiatives in its small grants scheme, which was sponsored by The Digital Hub’s Connected Health initiative.
The winning projects in this category proposed the development of an innovative hospital navigation app for smartphones and tablets, and an online website portal for accessing patient rehabilitation programmes. Both aim to improve patient-centred healthcare experiences and achieve cost savings.
Commenting on the projects, Edel Flynn, Chief Executive of the Digital Hub Development Agency said, “The Digital Hub’s Connected Health project is delighted to support the digital project winners who will be awarded through the St. James’s Hospital Foundation’s small grants competition for identifying digital solutions to healthcare challenges.
“There is a huge opportunity and demand for the development of ‘e-health’ or innovative digital solutions that work to identify and resolve healthcare issues. Digital healthcare technology is a major growth area globally and one where Ireland – due to our base of leading pharma companies and our thriving ICT sector and start-up community – could be strategically placed to become a world leader. The health sector presents real opportunity for digital entrepreneurs, such as those based at The Digital Hub, to develop invaluable products and services, alongside healthcare professionals, that could potentially be replicated across the world.”
Anthony Edwards, Senior Clinical Photographer, and Dr. Christopher Soraghan, Postdoctoral Researcher, were awarded funding by The Digital Hub and St. James’s Hospital Foundation for their proposal to develop an interactive app called ‘HospitalNav’ to enable staff, patients and visitors to better navigate the hospital campus.
Speaking about the award, Dr Soraghan commented, “We see great potential in this app for supporting communication, navigation, and planning with regard to staff, patients, and the public we serve. Delivery of health services and increased efficiency can be enhanced by such tools and we are very grateful to the Digital Hub for sponsoring this award and to the St. James’s Hospital Foundation.”
The two will engage with The Digital Hub to find a suitable developer, with whom they will work to develop their app through co-design meetings. They will then collect and map internal hospital locations using an established mapping method. Ultimately, the HospitalNav will consist of a series of videos of routes, with GPS showing the user’s current location within the campus.
The second award made by The Digital Hub and St. James’s Hospital Foundation was to Fergus Thompson,Learning Technologies Manager at St. James’s Hospital, who will receive funding to develop a public-facing ‘Patient Education Portal’ website for patients participating in the Cardiac Rehabilitation Programme at the Hospital.
The portal will be an online resource to support patients participating in the eight-week Cardiac Rehabilitation Programme, who have typically suffered a heart attack or similar cardiac event. Through the portal, the patient will be able to access information on issues such as how to exercise safely, healthy eating, stress and medication management. There will be a self-assessment facility for the patient to monitor their own cardiac rehabilitation once a week, linking back to the cardiac team at the end of the period for a final assessment and review.
Professor James Meaney, Chairman of St. James’s Hospital Foundation, said: “We would like to commend and congratulate the winners of our new digital award, kindly supported by The Digital Hub’s Connected Health project. The Foundation aims to attract investment to enhance the hospital. I believe these two innovative digital solutions will not only benefit the hospital, its patients, staff and visitors, highlighting the hospital’s commitment to innovation in patient care, but have the potential to be of benefit to hospitals and healthcare providers globally. We are delighted to work with The Digital Hub and look forward to future collaboration on digital projects.”
For more information on Connected Health, visit www.thedigitalhub.com/connectedhealth or emailinfo@thedigitalhub.com.
ENDS
Contact: Sarah Harte, DHR Communications, Tel: 01-4200580 / 087-9858259
Notes to Editors:
About The Digital Hub
Based in Dublin city centre, The Digital Hub is an international centre of excellence for growing digital enterprises. It is currently home to 70 scaling digital companies, employing almost 900 people. Since the project’s inception, 170 companies have progressed through the enterprise cluster at The Digital Hub, including some now well-established names such as Distilled Media Group (Daft.ie), Havok, Houghton Mifflin (Riverdeep), Amazon, Gala Networks Europe and Kavaleer. During their time at The Digital Hub, these companies generated 2,000 highly-skilled jobs, making a significant contribution to the Irish economy. The Digital Hub Development Agency is the rish state agency that manages The Digital Hub. Further information is available at: www.thedigitalhub.com.
About St. James’s Hospital Foundation
The St. James’s Hospital Foundation is a limited company and is separate from St. James’s Hospital. The Foundation attracts investment to enhance facilities, education and environment for the Hospital. The Foundation develops fundraising campaigns and also runs a small grants competition each year for improvements and innovation within the Hospital.