Alan Hobbs
Manager, High Potential Start Ups (Lifesciences and Industrial), Enterprise Ireland
Ireland is recognised as a leading global medtech hub, with our community of pioneering leaders playing a pivotal and transformative role in digital healthcare around the world.
Responsible for €13 billion in exports to over 100 countries, Ireland is the second largest medtech exporter in Europe. The industry employs over 45,000 people across 350 companies and over 200 of these are indigenous Irish firms working in a number of areas, including digital health, diagnostics and research.
Working with the HSE
In an era when unprecedented demands to deliver rapid solutions were placed on healthcare systems, Enterprise Ireland is proud to support firms working in the area of digital and connected health that are playing a pivotal role in shaping the future of global healthcare.
The HSE’s ‘Stay Left, Shift Left’ strategy aims to move some supports and care required by patients from acute environments to the home or community-based settings. Digital health solutions are at the heart of this and the HSE is partnering with companies, universities and researchers to utilise their innovations to drive this change.
Global healthcare leaders are increasingly turning to the Irish medtech sector for solutions.
Fostering an innovative eco-system
The HSE and Enterprise Ireland have a strong track-record of collaboration. The partnerships fostered by our High Potential Start-Up team and the HSE’s Digital Transformation Unit have had a number of successes.
The development of connected and digital health solutions can have a number of potential benefits for the health service, the primary goal being to improve patient outcomes. Others include the capacity to drive efficiencies, cut costs and to reduce pressures on the system.
This support from the HSE and the network of Digital Living Labs are important factors in the ecosystem which fosters the development of these cutting-edge digital health solutions in our medtech sector.
Impactful Irish innovation
Global healthcare leaders are increasingly turning to the Irish medtech sector for solutions and our indigenous companies are trusted by many.
Some of these firms includes HealthBeacon, which develops smart tools for supporting patients in managing medication through their Injection Care Management System. They recently published a study which showed a 26% improvement in medication adherence amongst patients using this system.
Another example is Swiftqueue, a patient portal which enables the management of appointments and results, and this drove efficiencies during the COVID-19 crisis by supporting test centres in managing appointments.
Enterprise Ireland is committed to nurturing Irish talent and will work with the HSE to foster the growth of these potentially transformative innovative digital health solutions.