By Mary-Louise Clews on 26 February 2018

Struggling to explain your complex idea? You’re not alone.

The digital health boom is being fuelled by amazing, potentially life-changing ideas, often created by very clever people with backgrounds in fields such as engineering and medicine.

A visitor to the SouthBank University SimDH event trials an AI based life-saving first aid training tool created by dualgood health.

However, there is always a very real danger that awe-inspiring inventions could fall by the virtual wayside because the idea is complicated and never articulated in a way that most people can grasp.

At a recent buzzing digital health showcase event organised as part of South Bank University’s SimDH programme (pictured) I got talking to someone who works for a key digital health championing organisation. They admitted they could spend up to half an hour having an app or other tech explained to them and they still wouldn’t have a clue what it is.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

We at Journalista are on a mission to help the engineers, mathematicians, academics, and clinicians and others with ideas that can change the world for the better. We’re passionate about seeing these amazing ideas and groundbreaking technologies take hold and thrive.

We’re not going to invent an app that uses behavioural science to prevent a person relapsing into depression, or uses AI to teach people how to administer life-saving first aid. That’s not our expertise. But we can use our in-depth experience and skills in communicating complex ideas in a simple way. We aim to play a small but potentially pivotal role in helping those ideas take hold and, ultimately, improve the quality of life for patients, health and care workers, carers and others.

Engineer husband and Consultant wife team Per Baumbach and Helene Bryde Andersen at Epitherm have created a potentially groundbreaking medical device which monitors patients for Sepsis warning signs non-invasively and continuously. They have helped to develop their product with the help of Southbank University’s electrical and electronic engineering Professor Dr Perry Xiao.

For example, we’re currently helping medCrowd, which aims to ensure the best care is given and received by bringing people together using messaging technology. Our work to help translate a fairly complex technology platform into simple to understand ideas has led to coverage from the British Medical Journal (BMJ) to the BBC via the HSJ and Digital Health.

Photo on wall of medCrowd founder Dr Felix Jackson at SimDH event in February. Felix has had invaluable product testing support from the SimDH programme tutors and students.

We are also currently working with a range of academic departments at Aston University to boost coverage of their key research and discoveries, from the MESO Brain project that’s seeing scientists grow ‘mini brains’ in the lab from stem cells to discover how we might one day be able to reverse dementia, to groundbreaking work that’s identified the numbers of young women at risk from stress-induced heart attacks. For more examples of how we’ve helped organisations and start-ups make their complex issues and ideas simple see our testimonials and case studies here.

Do you have a brilliant idea that could change the world but need help getting it noticed by a wider audience? Come and talk to us – we’d love to hear from you.