Med-Tech Innovation Expo is set to kick-off in April (25-26), here’s a brief teaser of what visitors can expect from the range of talks taking place across the exhibition.
Social Network
Over at the Med-Tech Innovation Conference, Dr Chris Subbe, consultant physician & senior clinical lecturer, Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board & Bangor University, will be taking the stage on day one.
As a physician working in acute medicine, Dr Subbe’s research has focused on practical ways to improve the safety of patients at risk deterioration on general wards. Alongside colleagues, Dr Subbe has published the first peer reviewed paper on early warning scores.
Ahead of the expo, Med-Tech Innovation News chats to Dr Subbe about some of the major trends currently happening in medtech.
What do you see as the major trends in the medtech sector for the coming year?
I think that there are two areas where application of existing knowledge could really drive impact over the next five years:
Integration of medical technology with consumer technology is the area where I see the greatest scope for immediate innovation. It is not by accident that Apple is increasingly active in this field (https://www.apple.com/healthcare/). Knowledge about what ‘normal’ and ‘well’ looks like for individual patients is crucial to understand what ‘unwell’ and ‘at risk’ looks like. And in patients with chronic illnesses this can only be delivered by collected data while patients don’t feel as ‘patients’.
Artificial intelligence will be able to integrate more and more complex information from more and more sources. But the human brain is not built for that level of complexity, especially not while working under pressure. This is where the development of better visual / acoustic / haptic interfaces that translate information into something that can be processes by humans will come in.
What are the opportunities of Industry 4.0 for medical device OEMs?
Rapidly adaptive innovation is something that we have not really had in the medical industry. The ability to develop improved products based on learning in near real time might change much of the way in which we can implement.
Give us your view on Brexit and how you feel it will impact the medtech market:
Effects are difficult to predict till trade regulations are in place. I am European. As a key driver for innovation I cherish the spirit of collaboration and am desperately saddened by the inward looking philosophy that underpins Brexit.
What will you be discussing in your presentation – and why is it important?
Over the last decade we have moved from ‘Safety 1’ to ‘Safety 2’: We are trying to understand why things are going wrong and why they are going right. In the medical world the burden of performance is still largely placed on individuals and documentation and training are sold as the answer to most of our safety challenges. From other industries learning is starting to emerge that safety is distributive: interaction of several independent actors leads to understanding of risk and generates solutions. Facebooks has used this with its Crisis Response. We have over the last few years started to explore how distributive, modular systems could make care in hospitals safer. I have called this ‘Safety 3’. And patients will for the first time play a very active part in these new systems.
Dr Subbe will giving his presentation entitled ‘What social networks taught us about use of technology to make hospitals safe’ on April 25, as part of the Med-Tech Innovation Conference.