Digital Health in Texas 2018
The Digital Health Expert Mission travelled to Texas to better understand the digital health innovation landscape in the US, benchmarking it against the UK’s capability. The mission brought together a cohort of experts from the UK’s public and private healthcare sectors, technology, and government, as representatives of the UK and its digital health industry. It sought potential opportunities for new, bilateral collaborations with the best-of-breed US companies, institutions, and health organisations based in the state.
Abstract from outcome report:
Healthcare is core to the Texas economy. The state is home to nearly 4,000 life sciences and research firms, with its largest city, Houston (population 2.3 million) hosting 134 hospitals and medical centres alone across its metropolitan region. In total, one-sixth of the city’s population, 345,000 people, work in healthcare, including over 16,500 physicians. In addition, Houston boasts the highest concentration of science, technology, engineering, and maths (STEM) graduates in the country.
The Texan healthcare system embraces the expectation that innovations can come from small and medium-sized companies, and if those companies become successful and profitable, then that will be good for the overall system. In this sense, there is both much to learn from the state’s fostering of local innovation, and an inherent tension for some in the UK market.
About Global Expert Missions
The Global Expert Missions (GEM) programme is funded by Innovate UK and designed to build international collaborations with governments, societies, enterprises, institutions, and people from every corner of the globe. With global challenges requiring international perspectives, the programme aims to support the UK government’s ambition to be the international partner of choice and a global hub for innovation by 2035.