On Saturday 17th March, the shortlisted entrants of the FastForward Innovation in Healthcare Competition met at the National Final in Manchester. They were joined by over 150 delegates, speakers, workshop leaders and judges to find out the winners of innovation prizes in the four categories of Education, Technology, Patient Care, and Unmet Clinical Need.
Kate Jackson explains her concept, Ralph Packs, during the lunchtime poster presentations
The shortlisted teams came from across the UK to present their ideas to an audience of investors, students, university faculty, and like minded innovators. A busy networking lunch allowed all shortlisted candidates to showcase their innovations via poster presentations and idea demonstrations. Finalists from each category pitched to the delegates and judges, and an alarmingly high quality of ideas were showcased – wide ranging innovations with the potential to effect great impact on a diverse range of beneficiaries.
All attendees also got to take part in workshops to hone their networking skills, build business know-how, become effective clinical leaders, and actively engage in healthcare politics. Interdisciplinary networking was encouraged throughout the day, and a lively Start-Up Garage demonstrated the value of this interdisciplinary working, when teams developed business ideas to solve problems in healthcare delivery.
Category winners were announced after much deliberation and include:
[care] Sponsored by Janssen: Harriet Treacy’s I.C.E. innovation to improve patients’ feelings of power and well-being.
Elspeth Hill, Chair of Fastbleep, awards wardWatch with their prize cheque
[edu] Sponsored by Janssen: wardWatch, a web based innovation to allow medical students to take control of their own hospital learning.
[tech] Sponsored by Janssen: Ward Wizard, a software to enable more effective clinical hand-overs.
[need] Sponsored by MIMIT: Ziacath – an improved catheter design to minimise complications within the bladder
Move Eat Treat won Best Poster with their campaign to move towards a proactive healthcare system, with an increase the emphasis afforded to lifestyle advice given by healthcare professionals and included in healthcare education curricula
The People’s Choice Award was won by Inovus Surgical Solutions, with over 4,500 Facebook “Likes” for their innovation – the Pyxus© laparoscopic box trainer
As this year’s innovators take their ideas forward, Fastbleep have big plans for next year’s competition, and will be opening entries for FastForward 2013 in the near future.
