#225 - 'Twas the Newsletter Before Xmas
...and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, except for....🐦
Hi friends,
This week: Take back control (of your data), AI hits the road to improve eye care, and is nursing in danger of becoming ‘uberified’?
News Bites 🥪
🗣️ Southampton GPs trial handheld translation device for patients – Language barriers remain a crucial barrier to accessible healthcare for many, and sometimes the simplest solutions are the best [What do you mean simple? it’s basically live translation!! - Ed.]. Pigeon suspects most healthtechs would be envious of a 100% positive response from trials participants.
🚚 Novel AI system tackles eye health inequalities in outback Australia – AI now rides around in a van, bringing healthcare directly to the people who need it. If this sounds like a niche remake of the A-Team with no budget for actors, think again. Using a first-of-its-kind foundational model for eye health developed by researchers at UCL & Moorfields, Lions Outback Vision will address disparities in access to eye care in rural Australia.
🚖 ‘Uber for nursing’: alarm over use of AI to aid US nurses and healthcare – A number of solutions to connect healthcare workers with shifts have sprung up in recent years, but most tackle a realistic need in largely realistic ways. A US think tank is sounding the alarm about the introduction of features to these services that may be common in ride-sharing but don’t sit so well in healthcare.
✊ The NHS must take back control of its data – The last time anyone British argued that we should ‘take back control’ of something, it didn’t end well (Pigeon checked, and enough time has definitely passed for that joke not to offend anyone*). This new call – to improve data infrastructure and leverage language AI – comes from someone who knows their stuff (GSTT’s Dr Joe Zhang), so we’re hoping it has the necessary cut-through.
🧷 NHS England launches digital clinical safety standards review – The critical standards that most digital health technologies are required to meet could be in for an overhaul after NHSE started kicking the tyres on DCB0160 and DCB0129. Big news if you’re a clinical safety specialist. Still big news even if you’re not, but you’ll have to hire one to understand why.
🫁 Scottish health board deploys AI on patients with chronic lung condition in bid to ease 'winter pressures' – Nearly 1 in 5 of those people in NHS Lothian’s remit who are living with COPD will be contacted for a review by their GP this year, after an AI flagged them as high risk of potentially ending up in hospital. As the NHS aims to move to a preventative model, where else could AI nudge people into primary care to spare capacity issues further down the line?
🤝 Cedars-Sinai invests $6M in Amae Health as startup builds center of excellence for severe mental health – Amae Health clearly believe “it takes a village”, as their integrated approach to the treatment of serious mental health issues brings an entire care team to the table. Its a model that’s built them strong relationships with one of the US’s biggest healthcare providers, and is paying dividends in both investment and partnership perks.
💰 Redesign Health scores $175M to launch new healthcare tech companies – From tackling health inequity to addressing challenges around aging and longitudinal healthcare, lofty goals sit at the heart of Redesign Health’s latest fund, which will see the company add to the list of companies its incubated. The kicker? Redesign aims to leverage AI/genAI wherever possible to achieve these worthy goals. Why didn’t we think of that?
🫄ARPA-H awards startup $3 million for home preeclampsia test – Accessible testing for one of the most common serious conditions that can affect pregnant women might not be far away after the US’s disruptive innovation funding agency chalked up the cash to fund further R&D by a startup led by a Cedars-Sinai exec.
What to listen to 🔊
Events 📅
Visit the SomX events page or subscribe to SomX’s events roundup to see all of the best upcoming healthtech, biotech and healthcare events.
Opportunities 🕵️♀️
🧠 Psychiatrist, MentalWell – If, like Pigeon, you believe strongly that people should be able to access ADHD support in as straightforward and stress-free way as possible, then this role at MentalWell may interest you. Probably even more so if you happen to be a fully registered, tech-savvy psychiatrist.
🔬 Research Assistant / Associate, Artificial Intelligence & Digital Health at Imperial College London – Imperial’s digital health work is disproportionately represented in Pigeon’s 2024 story highlights, with great initiative following one after another over the last few months. There can be few more exciting places in academia to work in digital health, and lucky for you, there’s an Assistant position up for grabs.
🏥 Head of Digital Delivery - New Hospital Programme, NHS England – English Healthcare’s biggest, most headline grabbing programme needs someone to take ownership of its digital strands. Think big picture, vision-driving work and you’re probably not far off.
✍️ Product Marketing Manager, Causaly – If you’re a product marketing expert that wants to have a role in building what could one day be the world’s biggest knowledge platform for biomedicine (or you just want to know what a ‘high-precision Knowledge Graph’ is), then go speak to Causaly.
*but if you are offended, well….you must be great at parties.
Got news, jobs or events you think is worth coo-ing over? Let us know! Email us: news@healthtechpigeon.com
Healthtech Pigeon is curated and produced by SomX, the communications and creative agency for healthcare. We are clinicians, scientists, creatives and communicators dedicated to serving our healthtech, biotech, pharma and public sector clients with services across strategy, content, PR, design, events and media production. Get in touch to learn more.