ReMed Host Successful Industry Network Building Workshop
The ReMed Research project team hosted a Network Building Workshop on 22nd June in the West Park Teaching Hub at Loughborough University.
The workshop was organised to host around 50 industrial and healthcare participants representing the range of sectors involved with the circular economy for small medical devices: medical device manufacturers and remanufacturers, medical device designers and developers, NHS, industry bodies, research and innovation networks, waste management and materials developers.
The event aimed to bring together these industry and healthcare professionals to share 'real-world' experiences and insights gained from their field of expertise, and to initiate a community of practitioners within the healthcare value chain, in order to inform future trajectories for the circular economy for small medical devices.
Workshop participants engaged in a discussion group
A selection of flip chart sheets and post-it notes generated during the workshop
The workshop format included two key sessions; the morning session was focussed on ‘Challenges, Barriers and Drivers’ and the afternoon session was focussed on ‘Innovation and Technology Gaps’. There were 4 discussion groups within each session, with each discussion group focused on a specific area and facilitated by members of the ReMed academic team. A selection of sample medical devices and some pre-generated questions were provided for each group, in order to aid discussion, as well as plenty of post-it notes and flip chart sheets! Each session generated a wealth of information, and a summary from each discussion group was provided to all of the participants by an inudusty representative.
There were many opportunities for participants to network during the day, and many participants were still engaged in discussion with each other and the ReMed team long after the closing remarks of the day!
The workshop seemed to be extremely well received by the participants, and lots of positive feedback was received after the event. Participants praised the format of the event, saying it was well-facilitated and enabled everyone to feel able to contribute and be listened to. Participants also commented on the usefulness of being able to access a network of people engaged in the same area of work across multiple sectors and organisations.
Professor Shahin Rahimifard, Principal Investigator of the ReMed Project, said:
“The success of this workshop and how well it was attended and received clearly highlights the importance and urgency for developing a whole-system approach for reuse, remanufacturing and recycling of the medical devices. We hope to grow the community that was formed during this workshop to provide a focal point for sharing knowledge and best practices, and through our future events provide opportunities to both inform upcoming innovations in this area as well as accelerating the journey towards wide-scale adoption of a circular economy with UK healthcare sector.”
The ReMed team are working on a report summarising the key learnings from the workshop, which is due to be published later in the year. The next ReMed event is the Conference taking place on 19th December 2023. Further details can be found on the events page.
Workshop participants listening to the summary from a discussion group
ReMed
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Phone: (44) 01509 225400