Healthcare was created to diagnose and treat disease. This with great success. However, today’s system is reaching its limits. Challenges such as an increasingly aging, but not necessarily healthier, population; the growing number of people having to live with a chronic illness and, last but not least, the corona pandemic call for new solutions. Great hopes are placed in digital and data-driven health application. But these solutions require a rethinking of how health innovation is being delivered. While the development of new therapies and medicines takes plac in the laboratory and in the clinic, the successful use of digital technologies need the patient’s willingness to collect and share data. Users will only show this commitment if they can expect a clear benefit from it.
In this regard digital innovations in healthcare often lack scientific evidence and operate in a vacuum. This is exactly where IHCHI, the Institute for Human Centered Health Innovation (IHCHI) ((Link: https://www.ihchi.org)) comes in. In close exchange and in transdisciplinary and cross-stakeholder cooperation, IHCHI has set itself the goal of jointly defining requirements for future innovations in healthcare that ensure that the needs of the people affected are the focus. To this end, IHCHI invites its members to participate in five work streams. Experts and innovators will work together on one or more topics from different perspectives and the results are then compiled at the annual IHCHI Summit. In this way, IHCHI can anticipate solutions to central health challenges, which it’s members, be them organizations or individuals, can then turn into a concrete project and drive further.
IHCHI was started in early 2022 as an association based in Basel and today includes an expert network of around 100 health innovators from various disciplines, industries and organizations in Europe, the USA and Asia. The partner institutions include the ETH Zurich and the University of Applied Sciences of Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW). Life Science Communication supports IHCHI in communication matters as well as in organizational and business development. The first IHCHI Summit is planned for April 12, 2023, in Zurich. Those interested in a partnership or membership are welcome to contact Thomas Brenzikofer, Senior Consultant, Life Science Communication.
Digital and data-driven health innovations promises for successful prevention and early detection of disease – but only if the needs of the people affected are met.