UU Welcomes second tech4health student cohort
Ulster University has welcomed it’s second cohort of students on to the tech4health Centre for Doctoral Training in Digital Health Technologies. Seven students have joined the programme at Ulster University. They were welcomed in their first week with a series of induction lectures on the core themes of the programme.
First up, Professor Jim McLaughlin, who spoke on the first theme - diagnostic and prognostic indications. Jim covered wearables, sensor technology and the ‘Medtech stack’ - taking digital health technologies from idea to production. Jim spoke about advancements in cardiac health technologies over the years and where this reasearch is going in the future. Touching on his work with clinicians and companies in the area of cardiac health and on sustainability in medical device technology among other considerations. A fascinating start on day one for our new student intake.
Professor Jim McLaughlin giving a talk on Digital Health Tech theme 1: diagnostic and prognostic indications
On Tuesday 16th September we were delighted to be joined at UU Belfast by Dr Steve Harris of UCLH. Steve has recently joined the tech4health management group as a Co-Investigator and is leading on theme 2: treatment and care optimisation. Steve is a Critical Care Consultant at UCLH and leads the software development for the NIHR Health Informatics Collaborative Critical Care theme in which he has contributed to the development of the first multi-centre research database for critical care (around 40 000 patients and 50 million unique data points per year). Steve spoke about the use of Digital technologies in health care, the pitfalls and the many barriers to implementation in clinical settings. He emphasised the need to work collaboratively - technical and clinical specialities together to develop genuinely implementable solutions that will work with and compliment current practice. A reminder to the new student cohort to think and work collaboratively in their research and avail of the opportunities for clinical collaboration and mentorship available through the centre.
Finally on Friday 19th September Professor Raymond Bond, Professor of Human Computer Systems at Ulster University, gave a talk on the role of data in digital health technology research. Raymond warned of the need for wisdom when approaching data for healthcare, especially in the use of AI and machine learning and spoke of ethics in statistical analysis and how it is often overlooked.
Raymond Bond delivering his lecture on theme 4: Health data security, interoperability and sharing.
Keep an eye on the ‘Our Researchers’ section of the website for profiles of all our new PhD Researchers over the coming weeks. We look forward to welcoming our new UCL cohort next week - Monday 29th September.