The Journal of mHealth Vol 1 Issue 6 (Dec 2014) | Page 24

Building an Ecosystem for mHealth Adoption

Building an Ecosystem for mHealth
Adoption
Demand for digital and mobile health solutions from all sources is rising. Developing an ecosystem around digital can, however, be problematic.
Organisations like the UK’s NHS have recognised that digital solutions
and technology-led services can help deliver new and innovative methods of
care delivery, but they are often ill-equipped to bring together all the necessary stakeholders and suppliers to develop effective projects.
In this article Victoria Betton, Programme Director at the mHealthHabitat discusses how the Leeds (UK) based mHealthHabitat has been set up
with the purpose of developing a unique ecosystem designed to solve some of
th e issues surrounding digital adoption.
The mHealthHabitat programme was established in Leeds at the
beginning of 2014 to support digital innovation for improved
patient experience and outcomes and more effective and efficient services fit for the digital era. The programme works
across Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust and Leeds and
York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.

Our Approach
We chose the name mHealthHabitat to reflect how the programme endeavours to create an ecosystem in our city where
mobile health can flourish. We have approached this in four ways:
Tactical –‘learning through doing’ which involves identifying
services keen to engage in digital innovation and working with
them through the process from initial idea through to deployment. This includes carefully identifying problems services want
to solve through to contracting with suppliers and advising on
issues such as intellectual property and integration. The team
provide project management support to each initiative.
Habitat – creating an environment in the city for mHealth
to flourish which comprises opportunities for the design and
developer communities to connect and collaborate with people
accessing services, clinicians and academics. The habitat includes
regular free ‘show and tell’ evening events; discovery days based
on ‘hack’ principles; workshops and talks; horizon scanning;
brokering collaborations between different sectors both locally
and beyond; development of a systematic approach to mHealth
innovation through a digital innovation pathway.
Strategic – embedding mHealth within transformation projects and the strategic direction of the NHS in Leeds, collaborating with city-wide initiatives such as Smart Cities, as well as
influencing national policy and strategy.
Citizen involvement – the digital innovation pathway
employs user-centred design and coproduction approaches
to ensure people who will benefit from mHealth innovations
are fully involved from the outset. We have established regular
‘heart of the habitat’ breakfast workshops which invite people
accessing services and citizens to steer the direction of the
programme. The website www.mhealthleeds.co.uk and Twitter

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December 2014

account @mHealthHabitat are used to share learning as well as
create transparency and accountability.
In this highly emergent field, the habitat approach ensures that
learning happens once and can be applied in many different
contexts as well as scale where appropriate. Working across
two NHS Trusts enables us to spread the benefits more widely
across services for the benefit of the citizens of Leeds.

Our Model
As our approach has developed, a model has emerged that provides a simple framework for the mHealthHabitat team to support clinical services. The model has four components:
Catalyse – supporting clinical services with bright ideas,
wicked problems or hunches they want to test out to investigate
if digital can be part of the solution. This space involves discovery days, rapid prototyping and activities which bring people
accessing services, clinicians, designers and developers together
to share learning, explore and create.
Incubate – an incubation space in which projects are defined
and prototypes developed using agile project management
methodology. This space involves market research, business
cases and grant applications, contracting with suppliers, and
managing the end-to-end app development process including
various options from licensing through to build.
Adopt –supporting adoption of existing products in the market or products which have been developed in the Incubate
space. This space involves adoption, deployment and iteration of
mobile apps and includes evaluation, research and development.
Embed – ensuring the sustainability and alignment of mHealth
with organisational and city strategic priorities. This space
involves supporting city leaders to embed digital within transformation programmes and strategies. It entails cross-organisational bids to bring resources into the city that support mHealth
innovation. It involves influencing national policy and ensuring
mHealth in Leeds has a place on the national and international
stage, building the reputation of the city and supporting the
LIHH objective to bring inward investment.
A key benefit of the mHealthHabitat approach is a focus relationship development and brokerage with a range of parties
from academic institutions through to industry, bringing collaboration and innovation to the city.