Health Innovation West Midlands Shares Details Of Transformative Health And Care Projects
Representatives from across the health and care sector descended upon Birmingham, to take part and learn from the transformational health innovations and projects spearheaded by Health Innovation West Midlands (HIWM, formerly known as the West Midlands Academic Health Science Network, WMAHSN).
HIWM hosted its inaugural Stakeholder Conference at Conference Aston on the 28th of November, where it showcased how it helps transform health and care through collaboration across academia, industry and healthcare.
Healthcare innovation investment and collaborative projects, such as the ones showcased, are vital to the sector as they support the development of life-changing medical innovations, improve the quality and accessibility of healthcare, and lead to improved outcomes for patients.
The projects showcased at the event included:
- Heart Failure – The project creates tools and resources that systems can utilise to enable improvement in heart failure care. As part of this, HIWM has supported Coventry and Warwickshire Integrated Care Board to receive funding for the NHS Managing Heart Failure @ Home programme, and results show that 47 hospital admissions have been avoided so far, saving the system approximately £60,000 in six months.
- Managing Deterioration in Care Homes – The project worked with 1,679 care homes across the West Midlands to support the training, adoption and sustainability of deterioration management tools. Between January 2021 and September 2022, there were 3,232 fewer emergency admissions as a result of the project, resulting in a cost saving of £13,590 per care home.
- Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF) – Aims to create the optimal conditions for encouraging patient safety improvement across health and integrated care systems. Outcomes to date have included the delivery of workshops and facilitated sessions, and a four-part webinar series which has enabled healthcare staff to gain knowledge to cultivate a positive safety culture, ultimately making workplaces safer and more efficient.
The event welcomed delegates from sectors including social care, public health, integrated care systems, academia and industry.
Tim Jones, Acting Chief Officer at Health Innovation West Midlands, said: “It was a pleasure welcoming so many of our stakeholders and sharing insights into how HIWM has accelerated the adoption and spread of new, important improvement solutions which have been demonstrated to deliver true patient benefit.
“Following the recent relicensing of the Health Innovation Networks (previously known as Academic Health Science Networks) for a further five years by NHS England, we are more committed than ever to highlighting the need for innovation in health and care, and the positive impact it can have on patients, communities and the economy.”
