Healthwave works with healthcare teams to help them engage with their people to deliver impact.
- Healthwave aims to reduce health inequalities by providing access to national as well as tailored and localised information.
- Integrated care teams are using the HealthwaveHub to foster collaboration across organisations to support better resource-sharing in healthcare.
- Healthwave continues to partner with health and care teams to serve a broader population.
Dr Rehan Symonds is a GP, Director, and co-founder of Healthwave, enrolled onto the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme in 2020.
With over 20 years’ experience as a frontline clinician, with a passion for leading change within the NHS, Dr Symonds co-founded Healthwave in 2018. Healthwave represents a collaborative knowledge network, enabling professionals to work seamlessly across multiple organisations to deliver patient-centred care.
Healthwave: A Collaborative Knowledge Network
Healthwave was founded due to Dr. Symonds, along with co-founder Oliver Sleeman, sharing a common frustration with the pace of change within the NHS and the barriers to digital service adoption. Their journey began with the creation of a digital health testbed in Cornwall, attracting global technology companies to develop solutions in partnership with the NHS. This experience inspired the development of Healthwave, which was designed to bridge the gap in engagement and community insights.
Healthwave officially launched in early 2020 with a primary focus on aligning the interests of the public sector, procurement, service design, and users. This approach aimed to break the cycle of exclusion by placing people, regardless of age, nationality, or protected status, at the core of digital service pathway design.
By the summer of 2020, Healthwave pivoted its strategy, prioritising clients’ and patients’ needs in their digital change programmes. This shift led to a streamlined tech stack, accelerated growth, and the availability of a citizen-facing platform for five million people by summer 2022.
The team at Healthwave communicated that they have supported healthcare partners to deliver inclusive uptake of services, aiming to make health, care, and well-being information more accessible.
“In today’s dynamic world, the landscape of global communication and service engagement is rapidly evolving. We’ve entered an era of hyper-personalised, niche communication, where information is crafted to meet individual preferences and requirements. Meanwhile access and engagement with health and care services have become increasingly complex, with numerous variables such as ethnicity, health conditions, cultures, poverty and geography affecting individuals’ abilities to receive appropriate care. In response to these challenges, innovative and tailored approaches to information sharing have become essential, especially as we shift our focus towards prevention and personalised support. As our society becomes increasingly diverse, the array of solutions people seek is expanding, making collaboration and local connections absolutely essential to drive service adoption to new heights.”-
Dr Rehan Symonds
The HealthwaveHub was then developed by the team to serve as a ‘place to start’ for citizens and enables professionals to access the latest information or upload resources, facilitating information sharing through communication channels. The hub is a collaboration platform, which aims to empower people to create and manage groups, curate resources, and build collections for easy sharing and enables people to create custom resources. The team have also developed a news feed, to provide real-time updates on new resources and user activities.
The team communicated that the Healthwavehub has supported the NHS by improving the NHS App uptake in the Black Country Healthier Futures ICS by gathering insights from over 140,000 people and 35 community groups, to create 16 user-friendly tools and resources, which were complimented by digital marketing which reached over 30,000 people in the first month. In addition, the hub is also being used by cancer specialists to get key messages to groups that are at higher risk of poor cancer outcomes.
“(This is) a great hub to host a wide range of resources for not only the Community but all NHS Staff. This hub has been key as being our main resource platform for all of our Cancer information. Being able to share the resources in so many different formats is amazing.”
Kassie – Senior Engagement Specialist (Macmillan Personalised Care), Black Country Integrated Care Board
“We believe in a world where people are able to access the services they need, when they need them.”- Healthwave
The NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme has provided Dr Rehan Symonds with an important network, expert advice to support his innovation journey and collaboration opportunities.
“The NHS CEP is a valuable and much needed support structure for healthcare innovators.
The program’s informative sessions and collaborations with other healthcare innovators have been instrumental. If you’re thinking of applying, then don’t hesitate to try. It can only help a budding innovator and we need as much support for those tasked with leading change as possible.”
Dr Rehan Symonds
Looking to the future
Healthwave is collaborating with Innovate UK to refresh its value proposition and design, aiming to expand from serving five million people to fifty million over the next 5 years. Dr. Rehan Symonds and Healthwave remain committed to driving inclusive digital transformation across the UK.
“Our journey reflects the importance of inclusive engagement and tailored information distribution in today’s healthcare landscape. By leveraging the HealthwaveHub, stakeholders have witnessed tangible benefits in healthcare engagement, marking a significant step towards a more equitable and accessible healthcare system. Do you need to deliver inclusive uptake of health and care services? We’re listening at info@healthwavehub.com.”
The Healthwave Team
For more information, please click on the links below.
TRANSFORMING HEALTHCARE THROUGH INNOVATION
