The Propel@YH accelerator programme, aimed at helping digital health innovators navigate the NHS in the Yorkshire and Humber region, is returning for 2020.
The programme provides support and advice to SMEs focused on digital health, with the aim of accelerating growth and increasing market presence and saw resounding success in 2019.
The Yorkshire & Humber AHSN will run the six-month programme with mHabitat delivering the majority of the masterclass content. This year also sees new partners including University of Leeds’ innovation hub, Nexus, Barclays Eagle Labs, law firm Hill Dickinson and Leeds City Council. The new partners significantly bolster the Propel@YH programme, bringing greater benefits to digital health innovators selected to take part. Content will be tailored to the bespoke needs of each individual cohort member.
The 2019 cohort reported several positive outcomes from the programme. Among these were raising significant investment, creating jobs, numerous research collaborations, and the creation of several new digital services. Members also attributed creating new opportunities to benefit patients and increased potential patient reach to Propel@YH 2019, with significant savings to the NHS.
A number of case studies from the companies involved with the 2019 programme can be viewed here.
Neville Young, Director of Enterprise and Innovation for the Yorkshire & Humber AHSN, said: “Digital health technology and data driven health solutions are an extremely important and growing business sectors, but SMEs often face a number of challenges and barriers that restrict their growth.
“By providing support through Propel@YH, we not only enable citizens to have quicker access to innovative products that help to improve healthcare in the region, we also bring economic growth and jobs into the Yorkshire and Humber region.”
Previous cohort member Barry Singleton, Chief Relationship Officer at Scaled Insights commented: “For any start up or scale up company seeking to better understand how to navigate the NHS, to understand its complexity and the amount of evidence that is required in order to work towards gaining adoption of new technology, Propel YH will deliver everything you need and more.”
SMEs in the digital health sphere may apply for a place on Propel@YH via www.propel-yh.com until applications close on 12th March. The programme is open to SMEs that can demonstrate innovative digital health solutions and either have an existing presence in the Yorkshire and Humber region or are willing to establish one.