Health Innovation Hub Ireland (HIHI) today launched a national call to business to provide innovative solutions for healthcare as well as a specific call for the prevention, early diagnosis and self-management of chronic illness.
Since it was launched in September 2016, HIHI has managed 265 company engagements, 166 of these have resulted in follow-up support activities and 60 of these have developed into active projects within the Irish healthcare system.
HIHI is a joint initiative of the Department of Health and Department of Business Enterprise and Innovation. As a unique joint government initiative, HIHI offers companies the opportunity for pilot and clinical validation studies and provides the health service with access to innovative products, services, devices.
It has been calculated that, in 2001, chronic diseases contributed approximately 60% of the 56.5 million total reported deaths in the world and approximately 46% of the global burden of disease. The proportion of the burden of non-communicable disease (NCDs) is expected to increase to 57% by 2020.
Almost half of the total chronic disease deaths are attributable to cardiovascular diseases; obesity and diabetes are also showing worrying trends, not only because they already affect a large proportion of the population, but also because they have started to appear earlier in life.
Welcoming the initiative, Minister for Health, Simon Harris said, "I am delighted to see that this call is in line with one of Sláintecare’s programmes which focuses on implementing Integrated Care Programmes focused on people with chronic conditions and older people. There are also many projects around the country which received funding through the €20 million Sláintecare Integration Fund which focus on people with chronic disease and supporting them to engage in chronic disease self-management."
He added, "This will also compliment the additional investment of €40m in 2020 in the reformed GP contract to commence the roll out of a structured Chronic Disease Management Programme in January 2020 targeted at GMS clients aged 75+ with specified chronic disease, focussing on prevention, more treatment in the community and hospital avoidance."
Source: www.businessworld.ie
