Tuesday 28 October 2014: The Can-do innovative Canterbury spirit is alive and kicking Last week was a big week for innovations of the technical kind at the Design Lab, with the Health-e-Homes showcase welcoming more than 300 visitors from across the health sector and beyond. It was a fantastic opportunity to work together with Spark Digital and their vendor partners. A special thanks to Spark, both for hosting the launch, and for sharing their stunning displays and facilitating access to a dazzling array of cutting edge technology aimed at supporting people to stay well and independent, for longer in their own home. It was an eclectic mix of emerging technology, together with a number of our own health system initiatives that are up and running and already making a difference to people’s care. The media were invited to the showcase and TV One took a lively interest in the Vigil Guardian wristband, in particular, which was capable of so much more than existing medical alarms. I was told the basic equipment (which doesn’t include data costs) is More than 300 visitors from across the health sector and actually cheaper and better still, it will be beyond visited the Health-e-Homes showcase. available early next year. The team from Vigil explained that the wristband could notify care support or emergency services if there were any signs that all was not well with the wearer – not just in the event of a fall or other accident, but if for example their vital signs were outside of their norm. This in itself was clever, but what really struck me was this: With the consent of the wearer, family members could look at near-live information online that could give them reassurance that the wearer was active (moving around, opening curtains) and the box that ‘drives’ the wristband can enable a Skype connection with the family, without the need for any other hi-tech equipment. I was particularly proud to see so many of our own innovations under one roof – HealthInfo and HealthPathways, ERMS, eMeds and HealthOne (formerly known as eSCRV). And there were more we could have shown if we’d had more time. Seeing it all together, it was clear that we really have taken huge strides in connecting people with the best information available to facilitate faster, safer healthcare, while not wasting patient’s and clinician’s time. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the demonstrators who showed their passion and commitment in sharing their knowledge. Our strategic partners Orion Health and Pegasus Health deserve a special mention for their flexibility and responsiveness in making key people available at short notice. As with much of our technical innovation work, it simply wouldn’t have happened without them.
Continues on the following page...