At Health Innovation East we support the best innovations in health and care to reach the people who need them most. We are committed to understanding the needs of our NHS and implementing change. However, in a system where there are so many opportunities to make a positive difference it is essential to be able to identify and prioritise the most critical interventions and ways to make the biggest impact. Achieving this is at the heart of the Biodesign Innovation process.
In collaboration with The Entrepreneurship Centre at Cambridge Judge Business School and Sluice AI, Health Innovation East hosted our first Biodesign Innovation Workshop in Cambridge in February 2025. The two-day event brought together over 40 colleagues from across the NHS, research and industry to work on eight real challenges faced by our local healthcare systems. We were delighted to welcome Rush Bartlett, Associate Director of Corporate Innovation and Education at the Stanford Mussallem Center for Biodesign and CEO of Sluice AI, who led the workshop.
The Biodesign approach really crosses sectors and strengthens the ongoing need for more collaboration. I will be taking all the tools and using them as soon as possible.
Biodesign is a needs-driven innovation process which has been repeatedly used in healthcare to identify and advance the most promising opportunities. It has a wide range of applications- from evaluating new market areas for commercial potential to prioritising an innovation pipeline.
– IDENTIFY and screen unmet needs
– INVENT solutions which meet all the criteria for solving the unmet need
– IMPLEMENT solutions via the development of business model and / or to market strategy
The Biodesign workshop gave participants first-hand experience of using the process, utilising AI software to help accelerate it.. Through the Biodesign process participants learnt to approach innovation via a common language, which can be repeated, practiced and integrated into business as usual following the workshop.
Over the two days, participants worked through the IDENTIFY and INVENT stages of the process and identified many challenges in areas of interest before screening them to identify the best opportunities to make a valuable impact. After fully exploring adoption constraints, each team then developed a solution which met their chosen criteria, including an assessment of its commercial viability and ensuring that it was feasible to implement in the NHS.
Throughout the workshop, participants worked in multidisciplinary teams, alongside industry experts and collaborating directly with colleagues working at the heart of innovation in the NHS. The opportunity enabled attendees to learn from each other as well as benefiting from insights from Integrated Care Systems (ICS), which understand everyday health and care challenges as well as having a responsibility for the implementation of innovations.
The energy in the room was high as teams collaborated, shared insights, and began shaping the future of healthcare innovation.
One of the key aspects of the Biodesign workshop was its focus on real-world application.
I very much enjoyed the workshop, the fast pace and short presentations interspersed with table discussions worked very well and kept energy high. The Biodesign process is extremely useful, I have already used the roles and needs criteria in an ongoing project and will initiate some collaborative projects resulting from discussions at the workshop.
As well as developing a robust understanding of the Biodesign process, participants built valuable collaborations. Health Innovation East is committed to supporting ongoing collaborations and projects, as well as assisting regional health and care systems to imbed this process as part of their innovation pipelines.
We are excited about how the Biodesign Innovation process can be used to accelerate needs-driven innovation in the NHS for the future.
If you are interested in finding out more about how our bespoke Biodesign services and workshops can support innovation within your organisation please contact innovator.enquiries@healthinnovationeast.co.uk
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