Health Innovation Hub Ireland joined St James’s Hospital leadership to host the Belgian Association of Hospital Directors
Last week, Health Innovation Hub Ireland joined St James’s Hospital leadership to host the Belgian Association of Hospital Directors(BVZD/ABDH), led by Geert Smits, to showcase research, patient safety, digital health and clinical innovation across the campus.
For eight years, St James’s Hospital has been home to HIHI’s Dublin hub. The visit offered an opportunity to share the depth and diversity of care delivery, research and innovation taking place across Ireland’s largest acute teaching hospital campus, and to exchange perspectives with hospital leaders facing many of the same challenges across European health systems. Led by St James’s Hospital CEO Mary Day, the programme gave the delegation a broad view of work under way across the hospital:
- Human factors and patient safety culture: Marie Ward presented the work of the hospital’s Human Factors Centre in building a strong, system-wide culture of patient safety.
- Biobank and research infrastructure : Suzanne Bracken outlined the campus biobank and the research infrastructure that supports clinical and translational research at St James’s.
- Cybersecurity and AI: Guido Giunti discussed the opportunities and responsibilities that come with adopting artificial intelligence and digital technologies in a hospital setting, and the importance of cybersecurity in protecting patients and services.
- Industry collaboration and scaling innovation: Eimear Galvin, HIHI Regional Manager and National GreenTech in Health Lead, described HIHI’s role in connecting healthcare staff and industry, supporting clinical pilots, and helping innovative products and services move from early testing into wider adoption across the Irish health system.
- Innovation in clinical practice: Gerard Boyle, Christopher Soraghan and team demonstrated live examples of innovations developed locally at St James’s and translated into clinical care.
The visit highlighted that the challenges facing hospitals in Ireland – patient safety, digital transformation, sustainability and getting good ideas into practice – are shared across Europe. St James’s and HIHI demonstrates what is possible when a hospital and an innovation hub work side by side, with clinicians, researchers and industry collaborating to bring new solutions to the frontline.