New report on innovation in MSK Health

Today marks the publication of an important new study into the level of technological innovation within MSK health. The NIHR’s Innovation Observatory has undertaken a global horizon scan, supported by our charity, to identify emerging MSK medical and digital health and care technologies with the potential to reduce the occurrence of MSK conditions, improve health outcomes and provide efficiencies within delivery of health and care services for people with poor MSK conditions. It is anticipated that the research findings will be used to highlight early-stage technological innovations to prevent and manage MSK conditions and identify areas of unmet need. The report includes a breakdown of 109 innovative technologies (either regulated medical devices or digital interventions.

The key takeouts from the report are:

1. There is relatively little tech innovation happening within MSK health compared with other branches of medicine.
2. The innovation that is happening (mainly in the US) tends to deploy tried and tested technology, such as VR, mobile phone apps and wearable tech, rather than relying on more experimental or less proven technology.

The simple conclusion is that we can achieve rapid progress by encouraging even more entrepreneurs in the UK to deploy existing technologies to MSK health solutions.  

The report is available to download here.