Category: Design and innovation

On entrepreneurship and seizing opportunities to make healthcare safer

By Ana Luisa Neves, co-founder of momoby, GP and IGHI Research Fellow. 

At momoby, we believe every woman should have access to prenatal care, regardless of where she lives. To tackle this challenge, we’re developing a low cost, pocket-sized device that tests for diseases that could harm pregnancy, using a single drop of blood.

Celebrating our women at IGHI

It’s Women at Imperial Week, an opportunity for us to celebrate some of the fantastic females who help keep our Institute brimming with brilliance.

To mark the occasion, in honour of International Women’s Day, we spoke with a handful of women from across IGHI’s Centres to learn more about what they do, what makes them tick, and the females who inspire them the most.

The Research Partners Group: A year on

By Alex Taylor, Research Partners Group member

“I would recommend highly [the RPG] to other researchers” – Researcher quote 15/08/2019

Just over a year ago my colleague and fellow lay member John Norton wrote a blog post introducing the newly-created Research Partners Group (RPG): An insider’s view of patient and public involvement. We’re a diverse group of 11 patients, carers and members of the public brought together by the Imperial Patient Safety Translational Research Centre (PSTRC). We were set up to help review research projects and researchers’ plans for involving people like us in their work.

Well, here we are just over one year later, and we have been very busy!

Launching the NHS Digital Academy

By Rachel Dunscombe, CEO, NHS Digital Academy

Standing in the Royal Society on the 16th of April waiting for the participants to arrive was both surreal and exciting. Surreal because of the rapid journey our wonderful team had taken to make the programme happen – this had become a reality so quickly. Exciting because I couldn’t wait to get started – this programme is important for the system and for me something I am hugely committed to.

The Digital Academy operational team, of which I am a part, are all keen to ensure that this programme is as grounded in digital leaders’ practice as much as possible rather than being too high end academic.

A young person’s perspective on being involved in a mental health research project

By Katy Pickles

My name is Katy Pickles and I’m currently part of the Young Persons Advisory Group (YPAG) for Imperial College London’s social media, other technologies and mental health research, which is focused on how young people might use social media whilst suffering with a mental health issue. Having used social media whilst in treatment for mental illness, I have found myself curious about the results of research such as this. I have been receiving information and helping shape the project for just over a month now and look forward to the next few months whilst I follow the progress that is made.

Ideabatic – where we are now…

By Kitty Liao and Abellona U of IdeabaticIGHI’s 2017 Student Challenges Competition winners

So much has happened since we won the Student Challenges Competition last year. The prize from the competition has been very helpful for us to secure our UK patent. Following that, we have recently submitted our global patent.

Advancing patient outcomes through technological innovation – from science fiction to science fact

By IGHI guest blogger, Chris Bird, PG student from the MSC in Health Policy at the Centre for Health Policy and Project Manager in the System Engagement Programme at the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE)

At a recent conference I was lucky to listen to a guest lecture by Dr Kevin Fong. Kevin has a long standing interest in human space exploration and space medicine and has worked with NASA’s Human Adaptation and Countermeasures Office at the Johnson Space Centre in Houston. He’s travelled the world to meet medical innovators and has produced interesting documentaries for television showing the extreme scenarios in which healthcare and technology can be applied to further human survival.

An insider’s view of patient and public involvement

By John Norton

I am delighted to have been appointed one of the first 11 patient, carer and public members (lay partners) of the new Research Partners Group (RPG) of the Patient Safety Translational Research Centre (PSTRC).

What a mouthful of terms!  But, essentially, the RPG is one of the new structures the PSTRC have put in place to help ensure appropriate involvement of patients, carers, and members of the public across its research projects. The RPG will be the first point of call for researchers and will scrutinise the patient and public involvement plans in research projects and act as a link to other lay partners.