University of Southampton launches multidisciplinary centre to improve health and wellness through technology

Academics and health professionals are uniting to solve challenging clinical problems through a new Centre for Health Technologies (CHT) at the University of Southampton.

The multidisciplinary centre, based in the School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS), will enable new collaborations that inspire healthcare, wellbeing and rehabilitation technologies.

Researchers formally launched the CHT on Thursday at the third annual meeting of the Institute for Life Sciences’ (IfLS) FortisNet hub.

Dr Adriane Chapman, CHT co-director, says: “ECS has a strong track record of major achievements in health-related projects and continues to host a number of research grants in this domain. This research requires an active partnership with health practitioners who can assess the problem statement and solution evaluation, but this currently rests on individual relationships and navigating complex organisation structures.

“The new CHT will help overcome these hurdles and spark new innovative and pioneering research that will make a difference to people’s lives. I look forward to working closely with health practitioners, industry professionals and policy makers to address national and global challenges.”

The CHT is addressing four Centre Themes of optimising treatment and behaviours, novel medical devices and systems, community health and wellness, and AI and health. It is co-directed by Age and Professor Neil White, with support from an advisory committee that includes expertise from senior practising clinicians and staff from the IfLS and faculties of Medicine and Health Sciences.

In 2019, the Centre plans to create a first health-based project that draws upon several ECS research strengths, prepare for student-led Group Design Projects that explore initial relationships and host a joint event with ECS’s Centre for Machine Intelligence.

The CHT draws together researchers involved in health-based research from the Agents, Interaction and Complexity; Biomedical Electronics; Cyber Security; Smart Electronic Materials and Systems; Sustainable Electronic Technologies; Vision, Learning and Control; and Web and Internet Science groups.

Current collaborative research projects within the groups include Wearable Movement Sensor Development for Rehabilitation Technologies and Personalised Long-Term Follow-up of Cochlear Implant Patients Using Remote Care.