Design Thinking in Action – Health Innovation Program

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The hacking mentality brings together the ideal mix of patients, healthcare professionals, physicians, technologists, designers, entrepreneurs, decision-makers, business leaders, researchers, administrators and governments. Collaboratively they can break down barriers to innovation in healthcare.

While a hackathon creates inspiring embryonic projects, we need to help these startups to sustain and scale. This mindset led to the Health Innovation Program. Here we learn more about this improved model through #HIP613.

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Charity Spotlight – Fibromyalgia Action UK | FMAUK

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The chronic pain of fibromyalgia affects 1 person in 20. Fibromyalgia remains undiagnosed in as many as 3 out of 4 people with the condition, with diagnosis times averaging five years.

Ahead of international awareness day on May 12, we examine what it means to live with fibromyalgia and explore the Fibromyalgia Action UK Don’t Delay, Connect Today theme.

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Adoption of the Wound Care Quality Standards in Ontario

Wound Care Quality Standards, Ontario, RNAO, OntWIG symposium

Wound Care Quality Standards are the foundation for the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care in Ontario (MOHLTC).  The OntWIG symposium identified disconnects between the quality standards and practices around procurement, funding accessibility and inconsistencies in the continuum of care across the 14 Ontario Local Health Innovation Networks (LHIN).

Here we reflect on the thought-provoking Ontario Wound Interest Group (OntWIG) symposium that examined the adoption of the Health Quality Ontario quality standards covering diabetic foot ulcers, pressure injuries and venous leg ulcers.

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Patients Included | Toronto Health Innovation

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Toronto Health Innovation Week provided a spirit of optimism for the newest innovations. Patients Included should be the default way of working in health innovation and improvement.

We selected four 1-minute video interviews to include here to capture the essence and optimism of Toronto Health Innovation Week. Read our reflections on the MEDEC MedTech conference.

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Lightning in a bottle | What True North means for Waterloo Region

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ONE may not be a familiar acronym to many, explaining why the expert review panel suggests renaming it as Innovation Ontario. Here we explore the intersection of the strands of tech debate and activities in the Toronto-Kitchener-Waterloo corridor. There is a spirit of optimism with Toronto Health Innovation Week, True North and Velocity 10-year anniversary, yet both the Building Global Winners report and the poignant book How We Can Win point squarely to the paramount need to gain global reach.

Steven Woods, Senior Director Engineering at Google Canada described “What we have, up here in the North, is lightning in a bottle.” He said that Google “recognized there was something special happening up here – the entrepreneurialism, the quality of higher education and the loyalty of the talented engineers who just want to do good work.” In the 2015 Global Startup Ecosystem ranking the newly combined Toronto-Waterloo corridor entity ranked 16th. The Region of Waterloo tech sector employes 30,000 people.

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