Academic and Clinical Cross-Collaboration at CIMT

  

A Centre for Innovative Medical Technology

The idea of cross-collaboration between medical professionals aligns precisely with the mission of a newly established research institute in southern Denmark. The Centre for Innovative Medical Technology (CIMT) fosters cooperation between academic researchers at the University of Southern Denmark and clinicians at Odense University Hospital. 

 

One of the MIHealth Forum sessions will feature speaker Claus Deudal Pedersen, the Head of the Department for Clinical Innovation, HIMSS European Council and Odense University Hospital. Pederson will address the audience about the work of CIMT, which includes innovative health and technology research and implementation.

Testing Innovative Technologies In A Clinical Setting

According to CIMT’s website, the centre will allow academic researchers from the university to collaborate with clinical researchers from the hospital, offering them access to a clinical setting in which to test the effects of novel technologies. The value comes in variety of forms, both for clinicians and university researchers.

 

Clinicians benefit from the collaboration with researchers by becoming aware of the most modern and effective means for communicating with patients and practitioners, and for improving treatment compliance.  Other hospital departments learn innovative ways to lower re-admission rates for chronically ill patients, for example. Some of the innovation projects currently underway at the centre include a 3D Photo Optic Camera for foot ulcers, and a specialised electronic patch for patients with arrhythmia which wirelessly records cardiac data.

Researchers, for their part, are given the opportunity to learn more about patient needs. They also become more intimately aware of the economic and organisational challenges of implementing their research concepts. Since these complexities should inform new technology development, it is essential for them to interact with the clinical staff who will ultimately decide the success of their new ideas. Crucially, these relationships facilitate funding decisions and external research relationships.

 

Widespread Support for Innovation

Budgeting considerations for the new centre have been supported by the creation of CIMT professorships, one by the Region of Southern Denmark and another by the university.  The university’s board of directors and other leaders have also established an Innovation Council comprised of hospital management, clinicians interested in innovative medical technology, and department heads and deans of the university. The Health Innovation Centre of Southern Denmark and the region’s mental health department also participate in the council.

Pedersen is scheduled to speak at the MIHealth Forum on Thursday, 22 May. The session, entitled “Fusing Innovation, Research and Daily Operation”, will be moderated by Jose V. Castell, General Director of the Health Research Institute Hospital La Fe in Valencia, Spain.