The chairman of an award-winning tech company has said the US is more open to adopting new technology at scale than the UK.
That鈥檚 the view of Glenn Cooper, chairman of St Helens-based Inovus Medical, when he spoke at pro-manchester鈥檚 latest HealthTech conference.
Founded in 2012 by聽Dr Elliot Street and Jordan van Flute, Inovus is on a mission to聽become the world鈥檚 partner for surgical training and recently secured major partnerships with AAGL and Hologic Inc.
Cooper said:聽鈥淭here鈥檚 a much more open discussion and adoption of our technology in the US than the UK.
鈥淭he big tech companies are leading the way. They鈥檙e so open about the new technology 鈥� as long as you deliver.
鈥淭he message we鈥檙e trying to get across is we have a track record of delivering and we鈥檙e not doing this by remote control from the UK. We鈥檙e invested in the US with American solutions.
鈥淚t鈥檚 45 per cent of the global market. It is the most important market by size.鈥�
Cooper took part in a panel discussion hosted by 老九品茶Cloud executive editor Chris Maguire.
He was joined by Leontina Postelnicu, policy and public affairs lead at Feebris, who said:聽鈥淭here鈥檚 still a lot to be done around improving awareness and understanding around digital health technology.鈥�
Lauren Bevan,聽director of consulting at聽Ethical Healthcare Consulting, said the health sector鈥檚 adoption of technology had slowed since the Covid pandemic.
鈥淭he urgency isn鈥檛 there to be able to put new things in,鈥� she said. 鈥淭he pace has changed and there鈥檚 still sustained pressure in the system. Managers and teams are still struggling to manage backlogs. What we鈥檙e also seeing is people are less willing to take risks.鈥�
She predicted the forthcoming general election would have a significant impact on the NHS.
鈥淚f there鈥檚 a change in government I would say the change would be different,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 think they (Labour) will be focussing on different priorities.
鈥淚 think that will be about getting the basics right and getting things to deliver rather than newsworthy headlines about attention-grabbing things like AI.
鈥淗opefully there will be more attention to what trusts and systems are asking for rather than what feels like their vote-grabbing headlines.鈥�
The final member of the panel was Jon Pickering, CEO of聽electronic document management specialist聽.
He said: 鈥淭he future for us is about disrupting the whole way in which people have been thinking about paper medical records for lots of years and digitalising it as quickly as possible to make that data of use for clinicians.鈥�
Mizaic is currently helping digitise the medical records of 10 per cent of acute hospitals in the UK but Pickering said they wanted to increase this number.
鈥淵ou can archive it (paper-based medical records) or you can make it of use to the clinician,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e make it of use to the clinician.鈥�