Medipex NHS Innovation Awards & Showcase 2021 – Interview with Medipex Chief Executive, Lindsay Georgopoulos
The Medipex NHS Innovation Awards & Showcase is an opportunity to acknowledge and promote the achievements of NHS staff members, academic teams and companies across the Yorkshire and Humber who have developed innovative ideas to improve patient care across the NHS.
The Medipex NHS Innovation Awards & Showcase 2021 will take place online on Wednesday 22nd September 2021 and Philippa Hedley-Takhar from NIHR Devices for Dignity MIC will be the keynote speaker at the event talking about “Ideas, Insight & Impact – the importance of user engagement.”
We spoke with Medipex Chief Executive, Lindsay Georgopoulos, about the event.
“Medipex have been hosting the Innovation Awards since 2005, why is this event so important?”
First and foremost it’s an opportunity to celebrate the incredible people working in the NHS who go above and beyond to identify what could be improved in patient care and find ways to make treatments and care pathways better. The awards are an opportunity to showcase all their hard work, to say ‘we see you and what you are working to achieve’ and act as an inspiration to others to have the confidence to innovate and make a difference as well. For Medipex, it is also a good way to identify projects that we perhaps didn’t know about previously, enabling us to add value and achieve better outcomes for our innovators.
It’s also a great opportunity for teams to raise awareness of their projects, enabling regional innovation organisations to get involved to help make a real impact – for example specialist technology development teams, such as Devices for Dignity, or the Yorkshire & Humber AHSN, who can support adoption and spread in the NHS.
“What are your thoughts on the quality of applications to the Innovation Awards this year?”
We’ve been surprised and delighted with the number of applications across all categories this year – and the exceptionally high standard. We’ve been really impressed by what our NHS innovators have achieved during the Covid-19 pandemic despite the added pressure and the difficult situations that they are still having to deal with. Although some applications have been in response to Covid-19 there are many other exciting projects that are unrelated to the pandemic – showing the breadth of activity that has continued despite the challenges of the last eighteen months.
“For those inspired at the event this year to consider applying for the Awards in 2022, what do you look for when selecting Award finalists?”
We look for the clinical need to be clearly defined and validated and for innovations to be solving problems that are shared across many organisations, as these are the projects most likely to make a positive impact and deliver patient benefit. We also like to see where teams have thought about how to quantify the benefits of their innovation and measure impact.
I know that Devices for Dignity excel in supporting co-design of technology – and at Medipex we also believe it’s essential that future users have been involved in development and design to ensure innovations truly meet the needs of the people that are intended to use them.
“How will the event be different this year?”
We’ve made the decision to host the event online this year, and therefore there isn’t the usual restriction on attendee numbers. This opens up an exciting opportunity for attendees to join us from any sector or geography, further raising awareness of the amazing work our NHS colleagues are doing to improve services and hopefully forge some new cross-sector links and collaborations.
As Devices for Dignity know very well, it’s hard for any organisation to take forward an innovation alone – it involves partnerships between healthcare organisations, academia and industry – so it’s great to be able to bring those three stakeholder groups together.
To register to attend please visit Eventbrite – Medipex NHS Innovation Awards 2021
