Overview

This event aims to bring together senior practitioners and policy leaders embedded in the digital health ecosystem to discuss digital innovation and data in healthcare, management, policy and clinical service delivery.

Organisers

• Professor Michael Barrett - Academic Director- Cambridge Digital Innovation

• Professor Eivor Oborn - Director of Health Specailism, Warwick MBA Programme

• Dr Panos Constantinides, Associate Professor of Information Systems, WBS

Speakers include

• Liz Mear, Chief Executive of the Innovation Agency

• Judith Hibbard, Professor, University of Oregon and inventor of the Patient Activation Measure (PAM)

• Villas Navapurkar, Consultant Physician and Head of ICU at Addenbrooke Hospital
• Hal Hodson, Technology Correspondant, The Economist
• Liz O'Riordan, sharing her own personal experience through the lens of a patient.

Activating and engaging patients

Achieving optimal health care requires the participation of activated and informed consumers and patients. Patient engagement has been defined as a concept that combines a patient's knowledge, skills, ability and willingness to manage his own health and care with interventions designed to increase activation and promote positive patient behaviour.

Taking an active role in managing one’s own health is increasingly important as the burden of illness continues to shift to chronic diseases and less resources are available across the health system. Individuals who are empowered to participate actively in their wellness and care have also been shown to have better health outcomes as well as improved patient satisfaction or experience. Despite this recognition, it is widely known that some patients engage more fully with their health while others do not.

In this Digital Health Forum we will examine the way that patient activation methodologies and digital technologies enable or constrain how patients, carers, and other ecosystem players engage in managing care. Numerous digital technologies have been developed that can be used by patients to take on new roles in their healthcare, including wearables, online communities, tracking devices and apps. We will consider how digital health technologies might shape peoples’ interactions with health care providers and organisations. We will also examine implications for patient autonomy and challenges of informed consent in an algorithmic age.