Everyone involved in healthcare should encourage innvoation, but also ensure that innovation is deployed in the right ways, says Dominic Cook

Each year, thousands of individuals across the healthcare sector persist quietly and carefully with projects and programmes which, ultimately, improve the care that many of us may need.

‘This list shows the value of innovation in patient and carer engagement and the capacity of patients to bring their own insights’

Many of these individuals may see this as an inherent part of doing the day job but the rest of the world, if it looked in from the outside, would call it innovation.

This Top Innovators list provides a snapshot of just some of the remarkable individuals who are behind innovation in healthcare.

It captures the importance of continuous innovation across the technology spectrum – from medical physics to social media.

It reflects the gradual progress made in areas such as interoperable patient record systems and the use of anonymised patient data for research and policy making.

Small advances, giant impact

It also highlights two important trends: how healthcare is leveraging advances in disruptive technologies, from 3D printing to genomics; and the capacity for specialists working outside technology fields to exploit often small advances in technology to great effect.

‘We must collectively achieve smarter healthcare for the 21st century’

Strikingly, this list shows the value of innovation in patient and carer engagement and the capacity of patients to bring their own insights to innovation in healthcare.

We must all strive to encourage innovation in healthcare but also, most importantly, we must ensure that innovation is actually deployed and exploited where appropriate for the benefit of us all. We must collectively achieve smarter healthcare for the 21st century.

I am very grateful to the judging panel for their time and for their insight but, most of all, I am grateful to, and in awe of, the many, many people who innovate across the healthcare sector to such fantastic effect, both on and off this list.

Dominic Cook is a partner at Bird & Bird

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