WISH 2016 leaders highlight value of healthcare collaboration

In advance of the World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH), leaders of the initiative emphasised the importance of coming together as a community to help solve to the world’s most urgent global health challenges.

The 2016 Summit begins on Tuesday at the Qatar National Convention Centre (QNCC), with Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, Chairperson of Qatar Foundation (QF),set to preside over the opening ceremony. Delegates from more than 100 countries are expected to attend, including nearly 40 minister-level representatives.

Leading healthcare experts met in Doha today where they discussed WISH’s dedication to capturing and disseminating the best evidence-based ideas in Qatar, throughout the region and around the world. The third WISH Summit will unveil new research in several key areas, including policy briefings on patient safety, dementia, affordable cancer care and learning from internal collaboration.

Professor the Lord Ara Darzi, Executive Chair of WISH, said: “Around the world our health systems face enormous challenges. Never has the need for innovation been greater nor opportunity to work together larger. The World Innovation Summit for Health brings the world to Qatar and Qatar to the world – as a convenor, innovator and leader in health. More than a thousand of the world’s top experts are gathering here in Doha for what promises to be an important and historic meeting. I’m looking forward to the summit opening tomorrow morning and welcoming our guests from across the globe.”

In addition to the policy briefings, WISH Research Forums will share their reports on Accountable Care, Autism, Behavioural Insights, Cardiovascular Disease, Genomics in the Gulf Region and Islamic Ethics, Healthy Populations, Investing in Health, and Precision Medicine.

Dr Mariam Abdulmalik, Managing Director of the Primary Health Care Corporation, said: “WISH has been a key component in the continued development of healthcare in Qatar, a successful worldwide global platform allowing healthcare experts to share knowledge, which is essential in our efforts to integrate healthcare in an effective manner locally. We have seen examples of this innovation in healthcare in the SMART Cliniclaunched in Al Wakra Health Center, which draws attention to a number of ‘best practice’ approaches used as a guideline for successful integrated care programmes. We have also witnessed the continued improvement of a comprehensive healthcare cycle in Qatar, the introduction of new programmes and healthcare models where the key goal is to ensure that the patient remains at the heart of all reflection, presenting them with simple access to better quality healthcare services.”

WISH, an initiative of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development (QF), was launched in 2013 with the goal of creating a community where the world’s leading innovators, researchers and policymakers could share their ideas and work together to implement best practices for the benefit of local and global populations. In the years since, WISH has proven itself to be a platform for action around the world.

In 2016, WISH partnered with the Carter Center to train a cohort of journalists through the Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism, which supports accurate reporting on mental health issues. In September, four local journalists received training at the centre. In June 2016, WISH participated at the Global Health Policy Forum hosted by Health Affairs, the world’s leading health policy journal, in Washington, DC. Since 2014, Health Affairs has published 20 peer-reviewed articles based on WISH Forum reports.

Buthaina AlNuaimi, President of Pre-University Education, QF, said: “Since its inception in 2013, WISH has had a direct impact in creating tangible solutions in healthcare advocacy, policy, research, and delivery, providing recommendations and support in identifying solutions to pressing local and global healthcare challenges. WISH is an integral part of the dynamic research and innovation environment supported by Qatar Foundation, and, as one of QF’s primary healthcare initiatives, it is committed to helping position Qatar as a leading centre of excellence and innovation for healthcare locally and globally.” – See more at: http://www.qatarisbooming.com/article/wish-2016-leaders-highlight-value-healthcare-collaboration#sthash.AgMD7Nz6.dpuf

Each year, WISH highlights innovations in healthcare through its Young Innovators Competition and Young Innovators and Young Leaders programmes, which serve as platforms to showcase tomorrow’s most promising healthcare leaders. Their innovations include devices, applications, innovative delivery models and design-based solutions that improve quality of care and patient experience, while also reducing the cost of care.The WISH 2016 Innovation Showcases provide a chance for entrepreneurs to exhibit their healthcare innovations and enables delegates to engage with ideas that are changing healthcare from the ground up.

“WISH has brought together policymakers and healthcare leaders from around the world facing similar problems in healthcare and health. One critical shared issue is how to use payments and other government policies to support innovative ways to deliver care that improves health while avoiding unnecessary costs – the aim of WISH’s accountable care work. WISH has enabled many countries to share their experiences and learn how to succeed in such models, ranging from the United States to the United Kingdom, India, and local applications in Qatar,” said Dr Mark McClellan, Director of the Robert J Margolis Center for Health Policy and the Margolis Professor of Business, Medicine and Health Policy at Duke University, and Chair of the WISH Accountable Care Forum 2013 and 2016.

Egbert Schillings, CEO of WISH, said:“Three years ago, WISH was founded to be an indispensable part of the global health policy leadership agenda, while directly serving Qatar’s healthcare system. With 109 countries represented at the summit – the majority by ministerial delegations – and measurable impact across the local health policy and delivery landscape, WISH has delivered on its mission. In depth of research and scope of impact, it has no equal anywhere in the world.”

In addition to the annual summit, WISH has several ongoing projects, including Global Diffusion of Healthcare Innovation (GDHI),an assessment of how healthcare systems around the world adopt new innovations and spread them successfully, with the aim of inspiring other countries to adopt the best methods and ideas. It also examines the cultural behaviours that influence the spread of new ideas, such as the way each country engages with healthcare professionals, patients and the wider public, and highlights particular areas where countries are creating these conditions.

Also, WISH’s Leading Health Systems Network (LHSN) is a collaborative network of healthcare leaders and organisations dedicated to improving healthcare delivery by effectively and efficiently using available resources. LHSN is an initiative of WISH in partnership with Imperial College in London. Its network brings together the best ideas, models of care and strategies to drive sustained improvement, and connects healthcare leaders to a like-minded community of peers that share the same goals and challenges.