Cutting-edge Derry innovation hub C-TRIC to host 10th birthday summit on how data can ease health care pressures

The Clinical Translational Research and Innovation Centre’s TMED10 summit will take place in the City Hotel in Derry in September and will place the spotlight on ‘Disruptive Innovation in Healthcare’.

Basque health expert Dr. Rafael Bengoa who outlined a road-map for the restructuring of the health service in the North with his ‘Systems Not Structures – Changing Health and Social Care’ report of 2016 will open the conference.

A range of international health and data experts have been lined up for the event by C-TRIC which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year.

C-TRIC has warned that throwing money at health care as the population in Derry and the rest of the western world continues to age is not going to be enough to ease the pressures on health care systems. Science and innovation must play an important role and TMED10 intends to explore this.

The organisers state: “The factors negatively influencing healthcare are many but have been exacerbated by rises in life expectancy, and a growing complex aging population with multiple morbidities. Money is unlikely to be the solution to the ever-growing strain on healthcare exemplified by the NHS where the annual spend has increased every year since its inception 70 years ago.

“Instead suggestions have been made that we must find better ways to manage the current budget and indeed save while improving quality of care. To do this will not only require a radical change in the way in which healthcare is delivered but also in the way that healthcare professionals think in terms of embracing change and in the way, healthcare is administered. This can only be realised through co-production between academic researchers in the biomedical and data science space, healthcare professionals, policy makers and notably patients.

“This interdisciplinary interaction is likely to improve understanding of disease, improve uptake of early diagnostics, improve clinical decision making, improve integration with health informatics, and increase the proportion of patients treated at home or in the community. To change we need to embrace eHealth innovations, digital solutions and understand how to use healthcare data appropriately.”