IT Innovation in Healthcare Workshop

Dr Lester John arranged the first UCT IT Innovation in Health Care Workshop, which was hosted by the UCT Health Sciences Faculty. The idea for the workshop was conceived by Dr Hasmukh Gajjar, a UCT medical graduate and IT businessman and this UCT-led initiative seeks to create a specialist, multi-disciplinary university-industry network to focus on IT solutions to address local needs in the healthcare sector.

The workshop successfully brought together a diverse range of participants from UCT's different faculties as well as industry. Opportunities for innovative solutions to improve on the provision of health care in the Western Cape were presented by Prof Sebastian van As that would impact administrative areas such as electronic patient records (paperless hospital), service delivery (communication of results and patient monitoring by palm pilot), storage of x-rays, etc. A key challenge will be protecting data within an electronic environment and maintaining a virtual boundary for a hospital to protect patient confidentiality.

Brief overviews were presented on UCT projects ranging from early research stage (ECG monitoring by cellular phone, Smart Microscope for TB diagnosis), through to technologies that have already entered the market (LoDox enabling full body scans and Cell Life, a not for profit organisation, who have a number of initiatives focusing on the HIV/Aids healthcare arena and Anti Retroviral Therapies based on UCT technologies).

Dr Hasmukh Gajjar mentioned that "there was no lack of money, rather a lack of coordination and integration". He sees a significant focus on cell phone based telemedicine, which will be of interest to the cellular service providers, especially with the ISP convergence that is occurring in the market.

The 47 million cell phones in South Africa have the advantage of being widely distributed across different economic groups/LSMs and importantly is the technology that has penetrated poor communities the most. The highest cell phone usage in the youth mirrors HIV prevalence underscoring its potential for application in combating and managing this pandemic.

Prof Kit Vaughan called upon a number of industry representatives to overview their interests and current activities, which led to useful discussion around the reasons for failure of medical devices in the marketplace, which ranged from limited resources, 'academic marbles' that lacked market relevance, lack of interest from principals, royalty issues, political issues and access to enabling associated technology platforms, e.g. screens and other components.

Find out more about this and register for future events by contacting Dr Lester John who can provide access to the "Neurostormers" website that he has created.