Telemedicine in a week!

During our 4th Pop-Up Ecosystem we targeted the area of Hope in COVID-19 times, in order to explore some of the ways in which our Ecosystems and Members have seen a massive change for the better with faster deployment of not new technology, but existing digital health solutions. This has been on a scale and a pace not seen before and leads to hope.

The hope is that such progress where we have seen “telemedicine in a week”, and “five years progress in five days” – two of quoted remarks during these times that can remain with us long after COVID-19 has ended the emergency phase we are all in now. 

In this Pop-Up webinar, the first in a series of themed meetings we had input from Richard Corbridge, Ex-Digital Health and Clinical Research Leader in the UK and Ireland, Advisory Board member for global Health Tech bodies, currently Director of High Street Healthcare at Boots UK asking if this change mean we do not go back to the old ways. We had Dr Margaret Whoriskey, Head of Technology Enabled Care and Digital Healthcare Innovation, Digital Health and Care Directorate who gave an outstanding example of NHS Near me seeing deployment of video consulting planned for a year delivered in weeks and monthly targets delivered in days. 

Then, Ion Gheorge Petrovai, Co-Founder at Fresh Blood who showed us Romanian examples of telemedicine deployed in a week with health professionals and patients both pushing away previous blockages to using existing tools such as Whatsapp. Liz Ashalll Payne , Co-Founder and CEO at ORCHA, showed the ORCHA COVID-19 portal and tools for referring from the UK deployed globally. 

Bisljim Braimi talked from the Health Innovation Centre in Southern Denmark about the great tools there for remote rehab work for instance. Lastly, we had Mike Kenny from the Innovation Agency in the North West of England who detailed how their ecosystem has supported local businesses to adapt in textiles and scuba masks to aid a peak in demand for supplies of safety equipment. 

Many questions were targeted around the hope of not having to go back – back to the old ways of deployment.  Hope in COVID-19 times was clearly a topic worth targeting and I thank the presenters and participants for taking part and giving hope. 

Our series of Pop-Up Ecosystems continues at pace and you can find more details here.

Watch the webinar recording below: