DigitalHealth.London has launched its inaugural Accelerator programme, with the aim of providing “in-depth” knowledge of the NHS to a group of “high potential” small and medium digital health businesses to help narrow the gap between product develop and uptake.
The first cohort consists of 32 companies offering innovative products and solutions within the healthcare setting, including: Sense.ly, an artificial intelligence-based mobile app offering a virtual nurse: MumoActive, a diabetes tracking tool; and DrDoctor, is an appointment management tool facilitating communication between the hospital and the patient.
A dedicated team of skilled Digital Health (NHS) Navigators will work alongside the businesses, to help them engage with healthcare experts and understand the needs of the market as well as gain first-hand advice on products in development.
“With ever-increasing pressures on health and care services, our ambition is to speed up the adoption of innovations at scale, ensuring that greater numbers of patients benefit from emerging new technology, more rapidly,” said Jenny Thomas, Accelerator programme director.
“The companies we will support frequently talk about how complicated it can be to navigate and engage with the NHS, particularly finding the ‘right person to talk to’. We believe – and lots of the companies have told us – that the Accelerator has the ability to change this, and we are delighted to be giving our first cohort the chance to work with the NHS in a completely new way.”
The first leg of the Accelerator programme saw 119 excellent companies initially competing for a place; group of over 60 senior NHS, commercial and technical experts assessed each firm’s business credibility and the likely benefit their innovations could deliver at a pan-London level.
The Accelerator sits within the DigitalHealth.London programme, a collaboration between MedCity and London’s three Academic Health Science Networks – Imperial College Health Partners, UCLPartners and the Health Innovation Network – launched earlier this year to accelerate the use of new digital health technologies by bringing together clinicians, healthcare providers, research institutes, entrepreneurs and industry.
