Innovations in healthcare displayed at NHS Expo

In theatre

Imperial researchers showcase new technologies that are helping to improve patient care and outcomes<em> - News</em>

By Lucy Goodchild
Thursday 25 June 2009

Imagine a hospital with an inflatable operating theatre, a robot that helps doctors perform complex surgery and a device that can be used to take out your gallbladder through your belly button. This might sound like something from the film Back to the Future, but all of these innovations are available for clinicians to use today.

Researchers from the Department of Biosurgery and Surgical Technology at Imperial College London and clinicians from Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust displayed these and other state-of-the-art innovations at a national NHS Innovation Expo on 18 and 19 June 2009. The team showcased technologies that have been developed at the College and that are now being used in clinical practice and education by the Trust and elsewhere in the NHS.

The Expo was the first of its kind and the biggest healthcare exhibition in the country, attracting around 6,000 visitors over the two days. High-profile speakers included Professor Stephen Smith, Principal of the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College London and Chief Executive of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust; Professor Lord Ara Darzi, also from Imperial; Douglas A. Comstock from NASA, who is responsible for transferring space technology to healthcare; and Lord Drayson, Minister of State for Science and Innovation.

Imperial’s stands at the NHS Innovation Expo were a big hit with visitors, who had the chance to try their hand at robotic surgery and engage in simulated procedures such as removing a gallbladder, removing Lipomas and stitching up an arm after surgery.

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In this video, we talk to researchers from Department of Biosurgery and Surgical Technology, which organised the College’s Expo stands. Dr Sonal Arora shows us a computer simulator that makes the trainee surgeon feel like they are operating on a real patient and Mr Erik Mayer becomes the face of a robot that can be used to make virtual ward rounds. Dr Roger Kneebone gives us a tour of the inflatable operating theatre, a low-cost portable training environment for medical students that can be inflated in under three minutes. Mr Barry Paraskeva talks about using new instruments to perform surgery through the belly button. Finally, Dr James Kinross tells us about the work he’s been doing in the virtual world of Second Life, helping medics to train using virtual patients and clinics.

The driver behind all the Imperial research programmes on display at the Expo has been to improve patient care and outcomes. The innovations form part of the Academic Health Science Centre (AHSC), a unique kind of partnership between Imperial College London and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, formed in October 2007. The AHSC’s aim is to improve the quality of life of patients and populations by taking new discoveries and translating them into new therapies as quickly as possible.

The NHS Innovation Expo was devised following from the NHS Next Stage Review published in 2008, “High quality care for all,” in which innovation was one of the driving principles.

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