EPIC
A collaborative project seeking to help grow eHealth businesses and improve health, wellbeing and enhance care quality by using eHealth technology
What is EPIC?
eHealth Productivity and Innovation in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly (EPIC) is a highly collaborative and interdisciplinary project, initially funded in 2017 by a grant of £2.7 million from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the South West Academic Health Science Network (AHSN), and received a further £4m to extend the project until 2023.
Led by the University of Plymouth’s Centre for Health Technology, EPIC centralises the valuable input from a variety of stakeholders across the eHealth ecosystem in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly to strengthen the innovation network and help to bolster sustainability, as well as providing sector-specific hands-on business support for local businesses to develop new eHealth products and services that will not only create new jobs and support the local economy, but create truly useful innovations which could improve quality of life and boost wellbeing for many.
In particular, for this phase of our project, we welcome ideas that:
- Address difficulties of providing care in remote locations, such as telepresence or internet of things
- Consider how to make technology more accessible to all; including differences in IT literacy, sight challenges, age or hearing loss
- Innovations which address loneliness and isolation, and the strengthening of support networks and community.
- Integrate with existing systems, to either improve user experience, strengthen their use, or offer cost savings solutions to NHS trust.
- Boost the tech sector in our region, including in robotics and devices.
What do we mean by 'eHealth'?
eHealth is anything technological that can help with health and wellbeing, improve quality of life, help people to manage their long term conditions, and make life a little easier. eHealth is often called Health Tech too.
Types of this technology include apps for mobile phones and tablets, programs such as Skype and FaceTime, or Virtual Reality simulations, but also encompasses sensors and wearable devices, humanoid robots such as Pepper, voice-controlled speakers, or even companion pets such as Paro the ‘comfort’ seal for people with dementia.
Contact us
We love to hear from you – if you can’t find the information you need within our web pages please email us at epic@plymouth.ac.uk and one of the team will get back to you.
Centre for Health Technology
Bringing together digital health and health technology expertise from across the University to drive the development, evaluation and implementation of innovative technologies, products, services and approaches to transform health and social care.Find out more about the Centre for Health Technology
