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Closing date July 31: New HIHI education offer, aimed at health industry leaders, promises Trojan horses of Irish healthcare innovation

News | Posted on: 23 July, 2019

Closing date for applicants July 31

Health Innovation Hub Ireland (HIHI) calls on Irish health industry leaders to apply for a new Postgraduate Diploma in Healthcare Innovation, focused on the development of ‘Healthcare Innovation Ambassadors’ in Ireland. The programme will help companies use innovation to create new business models, products, services and processes that will add value.  At the core of this education offer is co-creation of new models of working, through engagement with a wide stakeholder network to provide improved health and health industry outcomes.

For innovation in Irish health care to be sustained at an economically and fiscally responsible pace, it has to be a collaborative effort, requiring input from key players across the sector. Through education, HIHI seeks to achieve a culture shift that ensures those in Irish healthcare and Irish health industry are the lead architects of positive change and accelerate the Irish health system to one with innovation at its core.

For Irish health care to evolve into a more sophisticated and efficient system, cross-industry collaboration and inter-professional cooperation must become the norm. By engaging in the HIHI academic offer, senior executives and health industry leaders will build increased healthcare community capabilities, necessary to deliver lasting value for future health. The capacity to identify new pathways to improve healthcare challenges , such as the ability to assess the applicability and value of new technologies in the broader healthcare sector and specifically in their own work environment is enhanced through this programme.

HIHI is a joint government initiative of both the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation (DBEI) and the Department of Health (DoH), funded through Enterprise Ireland and supported by HSE. Operationally, it is a partnership of clinical and academic centres. Of the four HIHI academic partners, Trinity College Dublin (TCD) has specific responsibility for the delivery of educational products that will stimulate a culture of innovation within the HSE and Irish healthcare.

Prof Seamas Donnelly, HIHI PI and Course Director said:

 “Across the globe health industry leaders are thinking ‘how is the healthcare industry changing’? ‘How can we ensure we stay relevant’? Ireland is no different. Nobody wants to be the Kodak of healthcare.

“Through the combined learning offer of this Postgraduate Diploma in healthcare innovation, the Irish health system and Irish health industry can develop structures for active collaboration and co-ordination. Our graduates will be the Trojan horses in Irish healthcare that change how the system works from within.

“The Postgraduate Diploma in Healthcare Innovation will position senior executives across pharma, medtech, medical device and connected health as the bearers of solutions to the wider health picture and not just health treatments.”

Individuals completing the Diploma  will gain an in-depth knowledge of the dynamics of embedding an innovative health culture within their systems. Each will gain insights into the latest global thinking on creative and practical implementation of new ventures within medicine.  As places are mixed  – both HSE and industry –  there will be aa year-on-year a growing cohort of connected, and networked, innovation ambassadors in Irish health.

A one-year course delivered through Trinity College Dublin, the Postgraduate Diploma in Healthcare Innovation, comprises eight modules. There are six taught foundation modules and two project modules, including methodology workshops and a practical field project. The programme will offer fundamental grounding in key subjects: design thinking and embedding a culture of innovation; process innovation; lean thinking; social innovation and health economics; innovation and leadership. The practical project will help students to identify and plan an innovative solution applicable to their workplace, with a view to implementation.

The Postgraduate Diploma will be a catalyst in transforming the innovation mind-set within the Irish healthcare landscape. Graduates are expected to lead the adoption and embedding of innovation in the Irish health system. Closing date of July 31 for applicants.  Full course detail here.