Grant Reilly
23rd March 2021
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The Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre (DHI) has established a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with our new international collaboration partner, Kajaani University of Applied Sciences (KAMK).
This small powerhouse of innovation and learning is located in the rural Kainuu Region in the North of Finland, an area that shares many similar characteristics with rural regions of Scotland.
R&D at the School of Health at KAMK focuses on strengthening smart nursing and healthcare services and technology in-home care environments.
Innovation on workforce development includes DIGIOS, an innovative learning programme and platform, developed jointly between the disciplines of nursing and engineering to offer a holistic approach to upskilling, re-skilling and training the health and care staff from future workforce and practitioners to decision-makers. The project was assigned flagship project status by the EU.
KAMK has expertise in the use of simulations in teaching and in developing areas of clinical nursing such as palliative care, acute care and gerontological nursing.
The MoU focuses on knowledge exchange, the cross-promotion of each organisation to new audiences and the opportunity to create proposals around rural digital health and care innovation project.
The DHI look forward to collaborating and learning from KAMK on their cutting-edge approach to workforce development and collaborating specifically on questions relating to rural digital health and care innovations.
Professor George Crooks OBE, Chief Executive Officer, Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre, said:
“Working in partnership with KAMK will give DHI the opportunity to work closely with an international partner that understands not only the challenges and opportunities that digital technologies can bring to health and care provision but also how it can be best focussed on addressing the provision of these services to remote and rural communities. Innovation will be key in creating empowered and resilient communities where people can feel better connected and supported and where the health and care workforce can be supported through the provision of knowledge and skills to maximise the benefits that digital tools and services can bring”.
Matti Sarèn, Rector, Kajaani University of Applied Sciences, said:
“In recent years, we have seen a remarkable paradigm shift in the utilisation of digital means and data. DIGIOS is one of our initiatives that seeks to find solutions for ensuring excellent care of elderly people living far away from the nearest hospital or care-centre. Kainuu is a region the size of Belgium with only 72000 people. This poses different challenges to those in urbanised areas. DIGIOS technologies and AI solutions are very adaptable. They can easily support patients recovering at home from surgery, for instance. Therefore, collaboration with DHI is a great opportunity for us both to improve the quality of life of our citizens.”
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More information:
Kajaani University of Applied Sciences (KAMK/KUAS) is one of the 23 universities of applied sciences in Finland. KAMK has been ranked as one of the best universities of its size in Finland. KAMK is relatively small, with 2500 students of which about 10% are exchange students. Focus areas of KAMK are 1) ICT technology, 2) health and wellbeing, 3) mining and machinery, 4) tourism and sports, 5) eSports and game technology and 6) business. In ICT technology KAMK is working closely with the National Supercomputing Centre (CSC Finland).
All faculties at KAMK use the university's own datacentre and supercomputer. For example, health care focuses on smart technology in training athletes and in elderly care.
KAMK is an active university in games education and has delivered several international summer and intensive courses related to different aspects of creating games. In 2018, 500 students from India, Andra-Pradesh region took part in the Indian Game Development Challenge. In 2021, we are starting a program in Pakistan for 25,000 students. Subjects for this program relate to AI, IoT, Game Technology and Cyber Security. KAMK is also an active member of the China-Europe health & sports council (CEHSC).
Visit the KAMK website and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn and Facebook.
For more information, contact:
President, CEO of Kajaani University of Applied Sciences, Mr. Matti Sarén, Tel. +358 44 7101 600
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