The Allan Lab

It has been really exciting to recently announce the opening of our clinical research department ‘The Allan Lab’ at Jersey General Hospital.

www.theallanlab.com

Research is such an important part of health professionals’ work and the Jersey Heart Team have been actively researching and publishing over the last ten years. The Allan Lab is an immersive digital health technologies research laboratory based at Maison Le Pape in St Helier and is entirely supported by charitable funds.

Two full time doctors have been employed, with Dr Austin Gibbs (@DocEyebrow) as Lab Director and Dr Max Birge (@DrMaxBirge) as Digital Innovation Fellow. We also have several part-time students and nurses. We support post-graduate qualifications and training whilst maintaining our established research links with Oxford University Hospitals. Our staff provide additional part-time clinical care in the hospital which makes a real difference to the way that we can manage acute and chronic heart patients.

The main focus of our research is to explore emerging digital health technologies to advance the understanding of heart conditions and to provide immersive simulation, procedural training and medical education. We have some really interesting technology partners with whom we aim to investigate, test, develop and produce early clinical outcome data and validation.

Our work has already attracted interest from leading global digital health technology companies such as Apple, Amazon and IBM as well as professional organisations including the British Heart Foundation, European Society of Cardiology and the University of Toronto. On the back of this our team have been invited to give talks at major international conferences in London, Estonia, Los Angeles and Denmark as well as an invitation to attend No. 10 Downing Street and advise on related health policy.

Working with the hospital skills and training department, the Allan Lab is developing immersive medical education and training, using virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and is examining the physical impact of this using highly sensitive biometric equipment.

Not only is the Allan Lab providing world-leading heart research, but it is helping attract companies to test and innovate in Jersey. This new innovative health research space dovetails with Digital Jersey’s Sandbox strategy and the Digital Skills Academy. By engaging-with and attracting health tech companies, both local and overseas, we can help open up the possibility of a new economic sector for Jersey. It gives the digital skills academy and local students valuable work experience embedded with technology companies, as well as the added benefit of attracting and retaining high caliber healthcare staff by offering them truly cutting-edge clinical and academic opportunities.

The work has been endorsed by Minister for Health and Community Services, Deputy Richard Renouf who said: “I am delighted that this new innovation has been developed which will not only benefit patients but is also showcasing the skills and knowledge of our local expert teams, while helping to put Jersey on the map. It is an example of great innovation and how digital technology can really link with healthcare. I wish the team every success.”

Please have a look at our website The Allan Lab, give one of the team a call or maybe pop in to see what we are doing. If you are considering fund raising or legacy planning for a good cause then we please ask that you consider supporting heart research in Jersey and contact Dr Mitchell through this link who will advise you how you can help.