Greater Manchester Connected Health Ecosystem
The Manchester Connected Health Ecosystem is a collaborative network that brings together world leading academic expertise, industry partners from SMEs to major international digital & pharma companies, Health and Social Care professionals across the NHS, Public Health and local government, and patient and service user representatives.
Serving a City region wide population of some 2.8 million people, the Ecosystem is designed to engage key stakeholders in helping to deliver an innovation friendly environment for the development and deployment of connected health solutions; fully utilising the power of digital, mobile, and wireless technologies to enhance access to care, improve health, and deliver better outcomes.
The devolution of Greater Manchester’s Health & Social Care budget presents a unique opportunity to transform the lives of residents, allowing the regions leaders and clinicians to tailor budgets and priorities to directly meet the needs of local communities and improve the health and wellbeing of the region.
The Ecosystem, which is coordinated by Digital Futures, The Christabel Pankhurst Institute and Health Innovation Manchester, plays an important role in bringing together key organisations and personnel in this area, creating a platform for sharing new and important policy developments, research, funding opportunities and innovations.
We are a member of the European Connected Health Alliance (ECHAlliance), a network of permanent multi-stakeholder Ecosystems across Europe, North America & China.
Our Quarterly open meetings are normally held virtually and cover a range of health and technology related topics, further details of which can be found on our Ecosystem Meetings page.
Ecosystem Membership & Partners
The aim of the Ecosystem is to create a collaborative, innovation-friendly environment to enable all members to benefit from the rapidly expanding connected health marketplace, and the opportunities afforded by the devolution of Greater Manchester’s £6bn health and social care budget.
With a large and diverse membership across academia, the NHS, industry, Public Health & local government, the Ecosystem can potentially benefit participants in a number of ways:
Industry
- Understanding of user needs and priorities
- Co-development of solutions and innovations
- Access to professional independent cost-benefit evaluation & independent, clinical evaluation of innovations
- Opportunities for sustainable deployment of products in an innovation-friendly environment
Health and Social Care Commissioner & Provider Organisations
- Opportunity to inform research agendas
- Development of more efficient & higher quality care services
- Access to state-of-the-art technology and knowledge
- Access to professional independent cost-benefit evaluation & independent, clinical evaluation of innovations
- Supported sustainable deployment of products and innovations
- Addressing unmet needs & priorities through being early adopters
Research & Academia
- Access to state-of-the-art technology and knowledge in industry and other partner organisations
- Develop an understanding of user needs & priorities
- Opportunity to inform research agenda
- Develop partnerships to apply for Research Council, and other, funding streams
Patient Groups, Third Sector & Charity Organisations
- Addressing of unmet needs and priorities
- Influencing design and deployment of new services
- Providing a voice for the service user, carer, and consumer
- Opportunity to engage with partners and develop own research and funding opportunities
- Early adopter of new technologies
Whilst membership of the Ecosystem and attendance at events is free, we ask that participants commit appropriate time and resources to attend events and develop partnerships, and that subject to the success of any activities and commitments made through the Ecosystem, they be prepared to share best practice with the rest of the network. Further details are available here.
