Successful health tech projects to be featured at Health Ecosphere event
TORONTO, March 26, 2019 – Health technologies to help young people manage their mental health, patients return home more quickly after surgery, and just about anyone improve their self-care will be featured at a wrap-up event for the federally-funded Health Ecosphere Innovation Pipeline Project on Wednesday.
Academic and healthcare sector partners will celebrate the advances made and acknowledge the important contribution of the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario), which provided $15 million for the project in 2016. Since then, collaborations between public and private partners have resulted in dozens of new health technologies and services.
WHAT: Health Ecosphere Innovation Pipeline Project wrap-up event
WHEN: Wednesday March 27, 2019 (technologies on display from 9 a.m., speakers at 10 a.m.)
WHERE: Second Student Centre, 15 Library Lane, York University Keele Campus
SPEAKERS:
Rob Haché, Vice-President, Research and Innovation, York University
Ali Ehsassi, Member of Parliament for Willowdale
Rhonda Lenton, President and Vice-Chancellor, York University
Rob Bull, VP Finance, Technology and Innovation, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Information Officer, Southlake Regional Health Centre
Dr. Joseph Cafazzo, Lead, Centre for Global eHealth Innovation, University Health Network
Suzanne Rochford, Director, User Experience, TELUS
Harvey Skinner, York University professor and Principal Investigator, Health Ecosphere Innovation Pipeline Project
Examples of projects on display include:
- Connected Health & Wellness – Youth Mental Health Project – A randomized controlled trial at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health evaluated NexJ Connected Wellness Platform delivery of interactive online workbooks and related videos directly to youth with depressive symptoms. Specialized health coach training and related materials supported youth mental health, particularly in First Nations-Indigenous youth. The Youth Mental Health Project represents an innovative way of delivering an effective mental health intervention, at low cost, to large numbers of people. (Partners: NexJ Health, York University and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health)
- m-Health Solutions developed processes and technologies to enable transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) patients to be discharged early and recover at home while being monitored remotely. (m-Health Solutions and Hamilton Health Sciences)
- Spectrum Mobile Health further refined a customizable antimicrobial stewardship mobile app for healthcare professionals validating the utility of Spectrum, facilitating its ongoing adoption at Markham Stouffville Hospital and other hospitals in Ontario. (Partners: Spectrum Health Care, Markham Stouffville Hospital and Southlake Regional Health Centre)
- Bant, an app named after Dr. Frederick Banting, enables patients to understand how to adjust their diabetes self-care based on patterns and trends in data they track, including meals, weight, step data and information from a Bluetooth blood glucose metre. Bant has launched to the public app stores for iOS and Android and has more than 90,000 users globally. It is being integrated with TELUS Health Exchange, which will allow data from Bant to flow into TELUS’s Personal Health Record. Pan-Canadian deployment of Bant will result in a simple, easily scalable and low-cost way of enabling self-management of diabetes. (Partners: TELUS, SecureKey and the University Health Network, JDRF)
York University champions new ways of thinking that drive teaching and research excellence. Our students receive the education they need to create big ideas that make an impact on the world. Meaningful and sometimes unexpected careers result from cross-disciplinary programming, innovative course design and diverse experiential learning opportunities. York students and graduates push limits, achieve goals and find solutions to the world’s most pressing social challenges, empowered by a strong community that opens minds. York U is an internationally recognized research university – our 11 faculties and 25 research centres have partnerships with 200+ leading universities worldwide. Located in Toronto, York is the third largest university in Canada, with a strong community of 53,000 students, 7,000 faculty and administrative staff, and more than 300,000 alumni.
York U’s fully bilingual Glendon Campus is home to Southern Ontario’s Centre of Excellence for French Language and Bilingual Postsecondary Education.
Media Contact:
Janice Walls, Media Relations, York University 416 455 4710, wallsj@yorku.ca
