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Two days with new knowledge, inspiration and insights into new research and international trends within life science and assisted living technology. This year’s WHINN – Week of Health and Innovation – boasted many topics, which have each contributed with insights into how the Danish healthcare sector can be future-proofed – to the benefit of patients, citizens and healthcare staff.
Future-Proofing the Danish Healthcare Sector
This year’s WHINN – Week of Health and Innovation – boasted many topics, which have each contributed with insights into how the Danish healthcare sector can be future-proofed – to the benefit of patients, citizens and healthcare staff.
Future-proofing is relevant at many levels in different parts of the healthcare sector, which was reflected in the programme with topics ranging from robotics and automation to digitalization, data and artificial intelligence, and, for the first time, green transition.
Regional Council Chairman, Stephanie Lose, opened WHINN this year and many other politicians made their way to the 8th annual WHINN conference.
Green Transition
As is the case across Europe, Denmark and its healthcare sector have set ambitious goals for the green transition of the Danish healthcare sector, including a focus on reduction of CO2 emissions and increased circular economy. In order to achieve this, we need to act and collaborate across sectors and regions.
We still have a long way to go. In the WHINN track ”Green Transition. From single use to multiple use” Morten Hoff, Health Innovation Centre of Southern Denmark, Moderator of the track, concluded that “across different interests and bottom lines, we can all agree to come together across clusters, hospitals, healthtech industry, companies and GTS institutes co-create solutions through close dialogue and collaboration”.
Citizen-Generated Data and its Role in the Future Healthcare Sector
The healthcare sector is in a state of transition from a focus on traditional healthcare data (EHR data, telehealth data and PROMs) to including citizen-generated data (steps, BPM and behavioural data from SoMe and smart phones) to some extent.
The ”Citizen-Generated Data in the Future Healthcare Sector” track took the form of a dialogue between a panel and a very engaged and competent audience. The dialogue showed that the potential and opportunities are many despite the challenges and limitations, which are also important factors.
Network for Mobile Robots in the Healthcare Sector
The participants in the ”Netværk for Mobile Robots in the Healthcare Sector” track discussed experiences with mobile robots, service robots and automation solutions in hospitals.
All of the presentations underlined the significant difference in experience levels when it comes to robots in hospitals. The many well-known barriers for robots in hospitals are still present!
According to Louise Halgaard Gotfredsen, Health Innovation Centre of Southern Denmark, who was the Moderator for the track, “we need a more strategic focus on robotics in healthcare, if we want to fulfill the great potential and added value of mobile robots in healthcare!”
Artificial Intelligence in the Future Healthcare Sector
The ”Artificial Intelligence – a natural part of the healthcare sector” track provided the participants with knowledge about AI in the healthcare sector, from validation with the MAS-AI evaluation model, ethical considerations and implementation to practical use in a clinical context. The participants all agreed that the future healthcare sector needs technological solutions with artificial intelligence.
As with all new technologies, an important step in the implementation is for the healthcare professionals to increase their digital skills so that they feel comfortable and confident with the technology in order to support the citizens and patients in using them.
Sustainable Implementation of Digital Solutions
The Network for Implementation of Digital Solutions in Healthcare centered their trach around sustainable implementation. Sustainable implementation is about people and organisations, and not as such about what we traditionally associate with sustainability. The speakers brought examples of challenges and how to approach them, and everyone agreed that innovation processes are generally challenging.
An importnat element in advancing succesful implementation of digital solutions is the opportunity to network and connect with others to discuss how best to ensure sustainable implementation of digital solutions in healthcare.
Ethical Dilemmas in the Future Healthcare Sector
The use of data and artificial intelligence raises many ethical dilemmas. At the ”Ethical Tour of the Digital Space” track, the participants travelled 30 years into the future to visit fictive scenarios. They were introduced to four different cases in the shape of dilemma games where they personally experienced ethical dilemmas in the future healthcare sector.
For example, they were asked if it was ethically justifiable to track the activities of citizens with diseases, and whether an avatar should be able to use the citizens’ data to prevent undesirable health-related behavior by playing out the consequences for the citizens.
The dilemma games led to engaged discussions among the participants.
Hosted by the Ecosystem partners in South Denmark
The WHINN Week of Health and Innovation conference was collaborative hosted by some of the main organisations in the South Denmark eHealth Ecosystem; Danish Life Science Cluster, Region of Southern Denmark, CIMT, Odense University Hospital, Health Innovation Centre of Southern Denmark, CCR Centre for Clinical Robotics and CAI-X Centre for Artificial Intelligence, as well as other important national stakeholders such as COPI Centre for Public-Private Collaboration, Healthcare DENMARK, Force Technology and Copenhagen University Hospital.
Mark the date for WHINN 2023
The dates for WHINN 2023 are 8th and 9th November 2023, so you can reserve them in your calendar already. The planning for WHINN 2023 starts in January, to continue the collaboration to showcase innovation in the Region of Southern Denmark and the South Denmark ecosystem.
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