The government approved the establishment of a national healthcare innovation hub in July this year. Enterprise Ireland have been mandated to develop a call for relevant parties to provide the appropriate infrastructure. I anticipate the call will issue sometime in the coming 6 weeks. In the meantime the Healthcare Hub demonstrator project is beavering away in Cork. As well as helping companies chosen in its second round of projects, it is also hosting an open day in Cork November 6th dedicated to innovation in healthcare. Interested parties should approach tanya mulcahy at tanya.mulcahy@hih.ie.
Other recent meetings of note were the Medtec meeting on medical devices held recently in Galway and the IMSTA's get together in October. Medtec had an excellent exhibition of OEM providers and an enthusiastic audience of seasoned and newly entered medical device enthusiasts. The Irish medtech cluster is clearly alive and thriving.
That being said, we do not appear to yet have the level of engagement between industry, entrepreneurs and healthcare professionals. There is a growing awareness of the importance of innovation and collaboration with industry by healthcare professionals. We have a long way to go however. Potential green shoots I spotted were in Mayo last week where Bill Maher and his colleagues in the Western Hospital Group held an excellent one day meeting with a wide cross secton of healthcare personnel, HSE staff, industry and allied health professionals addressing the move to potential "trusts" by the Hospital groups. Michael Dowling the outstanding CEO of North Shore - Long Island Jewish hospital group in New York city gave a passionate and highly articulate and informative dissertation on what needs to be done to be successful. Michael is a stand out example of where brains, attitude and passion can get you. He makes the rest of us feel inferior and he is a lesson to any health based hospital manager in any system public or private, on how to consider your role and contribution. I'm glad I'm just a sales guy.
So back to Cork. There's alot to see in terms of medical innovation in Munster and the location of the HIH is ideal sitting in the Western gateway building on the old mardyke. The Hub is situated right in the middle of one of the most vibrant campuses in Ireland and is surrounded by a wealth of public and private hospitals and leading national primary care centres. Go see it if you get the chance. Ask Tanya Mulcahy and her colleagues for an invitation - they're keen to welcome all comers.