The event, held at Lucy Cavendish College, explored how ideas can be developed into products that benefit the entire community.
Healthcare transformation is being catalysed by new innovations, technology, and healthcare problems. With new healthcare technologies being introduced every day, a common question arises - who is this for and how is it useful to them? As health technologies start being used by patients, there is often a realisation that the product is not useful for the people using it. This a problem that needs to be solved in a way in which solutions to healthcare problems are developed by uncovering deep insights on ‘who’ the patient is.
The needs-driven innovation workshop was organised to introduce the concept of systematically solving a healthcare problem in a way that is deeply human and action-oriented. The workshop was spread over two days - the first day for introducing the process of needs-finding for a healthcare problem and the second day to learn about steps to take after a solution is developed. Participants were taken through a journey to understand patient needs in i) Maternity care ii) Neonatal Care iii) Anxiety Care iv) Chronic Disease Management v) Coronary Heart Disease vi) Mental Health vii) Care for Underserved.
The workshop was organised by Aishwarya Venkatramani, a Stanford Biodesign Alumni in collaboration with the Lucy Enterprise Society. The needs-finding component was done by Daniel Mogfers and Jeroen Bergmann from the University of Oxford. The second day’s talks by industry experts covered the topic of ‘Navigating Regulation in Healthcare’ by Rita Hendricusdottir from RegMedics, ‘Beyond Innovation to Disruption’ by Robin Diane Goldstein from Apple Health and ‘Innovation in health through design’ by Allan Sinclaire from TTP. Participants in the end, shared a ‘need statement’ that addresses a way to address a problem in a population with a specific outcome.
In a highly connected health innovation system in Cambridge, the goal of this program was to establish a ground-up way to look at healthcare problems.
Following the Cambridge Biodesign Workshop, Rouhan, Vice President of the Lucy Enterprise Society expressed how the event provided valuable insights to people interested in innovating in the healthcare space. She added that the workshop provided the opportunity to observe how ideas can be developed into products that benefit the entire community.