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Opening of new centre set to improve lives

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The University of Bradford and the Digital Health Enterprise Zone are launching a new research and innovation centre to develop pioneering relationships between academics, students, businesses and health professionals.

The building will be officially opened on Friday 29 September and has been created to support the research and development of digital health innovations to improve the lives of people living with long-term conditions.

The DHEZ Academic building on the University of Bradford City Campus, Phoenix South West, has undergone an extensive transformation to become a leading edge digital health research facility. It is the University’s focal point for access to the newest technology, research, and projects in digital health. It offers four floors of research, learning, exhibition and business incubation space. It has public clinics for physiotherapy, eye examinations and reviews of patient medicines which use the latest industry standard technology for high quality teaching and patient experiences.

An exciting feature is a full-size two bedroom Technology Smart House that links to a 50-seat lecture theatre. The Technology House will serve as a dynamic demonstrator of research and undergraduate and postgraduate projects to showcase technological advancement in digital health that can benefit people in their homes.

DHEZ Academic also houses dedicated research units for healthcare engineering, digital diagnostics and health promotion. We will be using the latest technologies in digital pathology, embedded electronics, mobile, wireless and satellite communications, biosensors, Internet of Things, semantic web, cloud computing, big data analytics, image processing, and biomaterials, and exploiting open standards and open-source platforms

Professor Allan Kellehear, Director of the Centre said: “By creating unique relationships between different groups of professionals we can design new and innovative projects that improve the way health and health care is delivered in the future. This new DHEZ Academic building is designed to inspire and nurture these innovations and I’m very excited and proud to be leading it.”

Matthew Swindells, National Director (Operations and Information) for NHS England will officially open the DHEZ (Academic) building, sharing the NHS perspective on this new development, as well as other speakers from Bradford and the region.

The Inaugural lecture provides an opportunity to hear from the inspirational Shafi Ahmed. A surgeon, teacher, futurist, innovator, entrepreneur and an evangelist in Augmented and Virtual Reality, currently working as a laparoscopic colorectal surgeon at The Royal London and St Bartholomew’s Hospitals. The lecture will be followed by a Q&A session with Mr Ahmed and representatives from DHEZ Academic.

Facilities housed in the centre include:

  • Medicines Advice Hub
  • Eye clinic, ocular and refraction rooms, and gait lab
  • Pathology Suite
  • Phlebotomy Lab
  • Physiotherapy Clinic, movement lab and walk lab
  • Business Incubation offices

is a £13.5m partnership led by the University of Bradford together with Bradford Council, with £3.8m of capital funding from the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). DHEZ Academic has strong relationships with Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnership who have supported DHEZ from the outset as a regional hub for digital health, local NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) and Trusts, and a growing number of partnerships with the Bradford Institute of Health Research, including the establishment of The Wolfson Centre for Applied Healthcare Research.

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