HMA’s MD Nicola Tiffany was recently invited to share our experiences in the digital health sector at the University of Manchester’s conference for ‘Technological solutions to support healthcare professional behaviour change’. The event featured presentations from academics and clinicians on the theory of behaviour change, research projects and tools already available in clinical and academic environments. Nicola was asked to provide an industry perspective and focussed on ‘Designing and developing for the Healthcare market’ presenting the following themes:
Case studies for current HMA projects, mHealth Assist, Isopharm, Prescribing Errors and NHS Blood and Transplant
Source of technology for Healthcare Professionals – who is creating it, is it authentic?
Lack of evidence-based digital health products
Increased use of wearables promoting self-monitoring
Importance of technology enhancing, not replacing the role of the healthcare professional
The benefits of co-creation to support adoption
Challenges of the digital health landscape
Nicola went on to speak about the event saying: “Events like this are a fantastic opportunity to encourage collaboration between academia, the NHS, and industry which can provide an exciting platform to improve the quality of digital health applications. Through working on various digital health projects, we have been shocked to discover how many apps are being developed without any evidence base. With very few organisations being able to boast the in-house skills to conceptualise, carry out formal research, design, develop, user test, and commercialise; collaborative efforts are often the only way a vision for a digital health product can be effectively realised.”
HMA has a strong track record within Health, Science and Technology, working with clients such as 3M, NHS, Tunstall, and Isopharm.