More than 1,500 delegates will gather in Dublin’s Citywest Convention Centre on May 26th and 27th next to discuss some of the main health issues facing society today.
The Future Health Summit is actually a series of 15 separate summits covering areas as diverse as mental health, medtech, oncology, wellbeing at work, clinical leadership, diabetes, ehealth, and homecare.
"With 1,500 delegates, seven patient forums, more than 100 speakers, over 120 exhibitors, and 15 separate summits being run the conference is focused on how we care, what we eat and how we live", explains Future Health Summit director David Neville.
“The theme for 2016 is ‘empowering the patient; information, choice and accountability’. The summit is now the must-be-at European event for present and future healthcare leaders.”
The event has grown out of the National Healthcare Conference which ran for the past 13 years. “We’ve rebranded and moved the conference to the Citywest Convention Centre due to the huge growth in interest which has just been amazing,” Neville adds.
"International interest has been growing every year with a huge range of innovators and global leaders attending from over 30 countries this year. These include Limerick native Michael Dowling who is CEO of US company Northwell Health. Northwell is valued at $8 billion and is the largest operator of hospitals in New York State.
"We will also have German digital health venture capital company DH Ventures while the Christy NHS Foundation Trust from England has been confirmed as an exhibitor."
International speakers
Fellow director
Marc Butterly
believes this growth is due to the quality of both the speakers and the attendance. “The event has grown incredibly due to the calibre of international speakers and the wide range of countries represented among the attendance”, he says.
"We have people like Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, Dr Sandrine Thuret, head of the neurogenesis and mental health laboratory at King's College London, and Dr Emad Ali Aljhdaly, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia deputy minister of health for human capital planning and development, to name but a few.
"What's incredible is that this event has built and grown from Ireland, " he adds. "People just like to come to Ireland for the event and Irish people working in global healthcare organisations like coming back every year as well."
One of the summits within the conference which is attracting most attention is the “Festival of eHealth”. This event is aimed at demonstrating Ireland’s commitment to ehealth and how technology is delivered to health in Ireland.
Chaired by HSE chief information officer Richard Corbridge, the event will feature a number of leading international speakers including Katz Kiely, founder and chief executive of digital transformation specialist Kiely & Co, and Andy Kinnear, director of Digital Transformation at NHS South, Central and West England.
“We’ll have a series of speakers from across the EU at the eHealth Festival,” says Corbridge. “We’ll be looking at the lessons which have been learned, things to avoid and things to copy. Speakers will be addressing topics like security, how to deploy technology successfully, the latest clinical equipment and so on. We will also have representatives of the third sector so it will be a very good mix.”
One of the key areas for discussion will be the electronic patient record system which Corbridge and his team hope to introduce to Ireland in the coming years.
Business case
“We will be taking people through the business case for the system, the costs involved, how it will work and so on. It is a very good opportunity to find out what people think.
“We can’t assume that we can just take what they have done in the UK or the US and replicate it here. We need to ensure that it meets the specific needs of this country and the Festival of eHealth offers a good opportunity for people to feed into that process.”
He also points to the importance of ehealth in terms of health service reform and affordability. “It is increasingly being recognised that reform can’t happen without ehealth.
“In the US they are saying that healthcare won’t be affordable in future without digital technologies. This is a really good opportunity to hear people’s views about the best way forward in this area.”
Bon Secours Health System chief executive Bill Maher points to the opportunity to share best practice. "I have spoken at and attended this event for the last five years and in a short space of time the Future Health Summit has become an annual meeting place for progressive healthcare leaders who want to drive change and improve healthcare delivery," he says.
“Delegates are encouraged to have their own input to creating solutions and sharing their own solutions and innovations on an international platform, while also networking with up to 1,200 colleagues from all around the world who are willing to share best practice.”
Michael Dowling of Northwell Health is looking forward to returning to Ireland for the conference. “This conference is another one of Ireland’s contributions to global healthcare,” he says.
“The Future Health Summit is required attendance for all who wish to engage in a stimulating interchange on the future of healthcare – globally and domestically. Combined with Irish hospitality, it’s an experience not to be missed.” www.futurehealthsummit.com/
