Leslie Harris
Managing Director, EIT Health Ireland-UK
When considering the direction healthcare will take, Ireland’s future looks promising.
Ireland supports a vibrant health innovation community and has solidified its impressive position as the second biggest exporter of medical device technology globally. Ireland also plays host to burgeoning educational programmes that produce successful health tech entrepreneurs.
However, a unique idea and a qualified team isn’t enough to ensure success. Those at the forefront of health innovation can find the Irish market to be too small for testing and validation. In these cases, entrepreneurs need only look to our European neighbours for collaboration opportunities to test in larger markets and draw on a wider pool of resources.
The pandemic hit the accelerator on ground-breaking innovation. In 2021, USD 44 billion was raised globally in health innovation. This represents a 20-fold increase in 10 years, and is double the 2020 amount. These investments affecting healthcare for Irish and European citizens will prioritise and optimise patient experience.
If you want to know what the future of healthcare in Ireland will look like, look no farther than Europe.
The aim is that those VC-backed data-driven technologies being developed will:
1. Bring care home
Technologies that bring interactions away from reality and into the virtual world mean improved efficiencies in healthcare settings and enable greater attention to be paid to patients that require face-to-face care.
2. Use AI to improve patient care
London-based start-up Abtrace has developed a unique AI tool, which acts as an intelligent layer on top of the electronic health record. Abtrace’s software scans the EHR and proactively suggests to GPs and clinicians which treatments are required, empowering them to make data driven decisions.
3. Move from treatment to prevention
Predictive analytics can provide models for early diagnosis, thereby avoiding preventable diseases or delaying their onset. A pan-European innovation project underway is the Alzheimer’s Disease Prediction Service (ADPS).
At EIT Health in Ireland, we have enabled over 70 entrepreneurs, start-ups and SMEs to scale into Europe. With our support these medtech, biotech and digital health start-ups have gone onto raise €129 million in investment with more than €73 million of that occurring in 2021.
If you want to know what the future of healthcare in Ireland will look like, look no farther than Europe.