HEALTH SERVICE EXECUTIVE
over the last 15 years or so ," Curley says . " Ireland didn ' t do that , even though that was the intention . What we propose instead is moving to a healthcare system that , instead of being paper-based and presence-based around acute hospitals , is mainly home and community-based , is proactive , predictive , mobile and cloud-enabled , leveraging opensource where possible .”
Curley says there is a real opportunity for Ireland to lead in this space . " We have this really unique point in time where we have all these disruptive technologies available in the cloud-like machine learning and the Internet of Things , that enable us to do things that weren ' t possible five years ago ."
One example of this is remote monitoring via pulse oximeters and apps , which they deployed during the pandemic . This led to an innovative platform for remote respiratory management developed in a ' Living Lab ', which today has 850 patients with chronic respiratory conditions being monitored remotely while they ' re at home .
" A Living Lab is where a technology or solution is actually tested in context , in a clinical setting and quickly co-designed in an agile way . We have four phases of innovation : exploration , proof of concept if that ' s successful we move to demonstrator , proving the business value and clinical efficacy of a solution , and lastly , broad adoption ," Curley explains .
" We try to develop a consistent innovation pathway , a place where good ideas and embryonic solutions can be generated and evaluated , and if we feel there ' s significant value , we can deploy these in a living lab ."
Members of the government , industry , academia and patients or citizens themselves participate in these labs , with the benefit of utilising patients as
co-innovators in the process , rather than treating them as research objects . " We ' re getting really good results ," Curley says . " We ' re able to speed up projects , and we ' re usually hitting all four elements of our quadruple aim - reduced costs , improved care , improved quality of life , and improved clinician experience ." The Digital Transformation and Innovation team has set up over thirty
36 October 2021