Winter Edition 2024 3 Welcome to the Pulse winter 2024 In this issue, the focus is on the varied nature of research, teaching, and other activities taking place in the digital health sphere across the School of Medicine and the university. We detail a range of exciting developments including work under the leadership of Dr Natalie Cole, the Head of Innovation at Tallaght University Hospital and Professor John Kelleher in the School of Computer Science and the ADAPT Research Centre. This is a rapidly evolving space, most evident in the developments in artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI. Such innovations are in sharp contrast to the relentlessly slow progress at health system level over the last two decades. Anyone using, working in, researching, and managing the Irish health system can tell you how failure to progress on even relatively straightforward digital fronts (such as electronic patient records, digital linkage of different care providers, the availability of interoperable data) impedes the day-to-day care experience and outcomes for patients in the health system. Internationally, the digital health arena is booming with academia and industry trying to figure out how it can improve health in areas such as combating antimicrobial resistance, contributing to climate sustainability, impacting on gender, race, and equity, supporting care integration, healthy ageing, and better quality of life for those with chronic and life- limiting conditions through digital solutions. Essentially all content in this issue demonstrates different ways that Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin, students, staff, and clinicians are leveraging digital transformation for better health. This is exciting and much needed, but essentially a journey that is just at the starting line. One of the real risks of digital health is that it has the possibility to escalate inequalities, therefore there is a real onus on us as researchers, educators, clinicians, healthcare managers, and students to ensure that our digital health practices and innovations assist in reducing existing inequities, not vice versa. Thanks to Mary O’Neill for successfully recruiting five students to write for this issue. I recommend reading first-year medical student Ami Aggarwal on page 14, who is a writing talent to watch. Finally, continued thanks to the editorial and production team who put this edition of the Pulse newsletter together: Mary O’Neill, Michelle Hendrick, Dr Sarah Parker, Dr Liz Farsaci, Dr Rikke Siersbaek, and Dr Katharine Schulmann. Special thanks to Cait Kane who does all the excellent design and layout for us and who features on page 38 in ‘A Day in the Life of’ section. Wishing everyone a good break over the holiday and a good return to college in January, refreshed and ready for 2025. Sara Burke, Associate Professor and Director of the Centre for Health Policy and Management
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