Participants show great interest in WHINN - Week of Health and Innovation 2017

Sep 28 2017

With two weeks to go, more than twice as many participants have registered for the knowledge festival, WHINN - Week of Health and Innovation than at the same time in 2016.

Health innovation. Things are looking good in terms of the number of participants at the 2017 WHINN - Week and Health and Innovation knowledge festival. The exhibition has been sold out for quite some time now and the number of companies, healthcare professionals, decision-makers and experts from all over Europe and the rest of the world who have signed up is currently more than double than at this time last year. More than 30 nationalities have registered, predominantly operators from the Nordic region, the Netherlands and Germany.

Registration at WHINN 2016 (credit: Ard Jongsma / WHINN)

According to the head of the knowledge festival, Michaela Andersen, in addition to patient pressure and a consequent interest in health technology solutions, the reason for the huge interest in this year's WHINN is its increased focus on the narrative of Denmark as Europe's health technology laboratory:

Following the 2016 focus on the Nordic region, this year's WHINN is determined to attract healthcare stakeholders from all over Europe. We could sense a growing interest in a Danish healthcare system, which manages both to promote new technology and to guarantee its implementation by involving healthcare professionals.

According to the director of WHINN, the growing interest in WHINN reflects a tendency to proclaim Denmark the health technology laboratory of Europe, and there are many entities, both large and small, who want to be a part of it.

Danish healthcare in great demand

The huge support for WHINN corresponds well with the fact that Healthcare DENMARK, which is in charge of international promotion and of marketing Denmark's position of strength in the healthcare sector, is witnessing rapidly growing international interest.

"In the course of 2017, Healthcare DENMARK's level of activity, which includes receiving international delegations and organizing international campaigns, has increased by 50%. At the same time we notice that top executives and ministers are interested in visiting Denmark to hear about developments in the Danish healthcare system," explains Hans Erik Henriksen, CEO of Healthcare Denmark.

There are times that this conflicts with the image put out by the media, which sometimes gives an impression of a healthcare system in a state of decline. We are really good at transforming our healthcare system and inspiring other countries, but part of the development can also involve a period of imbalance. A good example of this is patients having to lie in beds in hospital corridors. But Hans Erik does not believe that this is indicative of a poor healthcare system.

"Right now, the Danish healthcare system is changing radically and that creates a certain imbalance. But it is important to remember that large parts of the world are currently looking in Denmark's direction as a result of our successful transformation, innovative solutions in the health sector and our ability to involve healthcare professionals in the development of new solutions and models."

Visit from a Japanese robot

It is not only human healthcare operators who will be coming to Odense during WHINN. The healthcare robot, Pepper, who was originally developed in Europe, but now belongs to Japan, will also be visiting the knowledge festival. According to Soeren Tranbjerg Hansen, PhD, an expert in robots and artificial intelligence at Brainbotics, Pepper visiting WHINN is all about creating peace of mind and finding inspiration in the encounter between humans and robots:

It's all about gathering data for new and existing projects, meeting like-minded robots and making close contact with Danish healthcare professionals and make sense of cooperation between cold, warm and robot hands.

Source: http://www.whinn.dk/