The Health Innovation Roundup, sponsored by Health Cities, is written and published weekly by Taproot Edmonton to bring you the latest news and events in research, technology, companies and people changing health for the better in Edmonton.

Sign up to get the full edition delivered directly to your inbox. Use the code HEALTHCITY & you’ll get 10% off the first year.

Here are some highlights from this week’s Health Innovation Roundup:

Headlines

        • Nobel laureate Michael Houghton, director of the Li Ka Shing Institute of Virology, spoke with TheFutureEconomy.ca about the potential of Alberta’s life sciences sector.
        • Startup TNT has posted the video of its Top 20 Pitch Night for the Life Sciences Investment Summit. Five Edmonton-area companies — MACH32, Umay, CannaBiscuit, Exciton Pharma, and sn Biomedical — made their pitches in hopes of making it through to seek investment at the summit on March 17.
        • Health Cities has joined the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, a non-profit organization that works to boost global health and wellness using information and technology.
        • True Angle has launched its professional suite, which will allow clinicians to use one of the company’s Mobili-T systems for multiple patients, and switch between the mobile and desktop apps to track their progress. It also allows health-care providers to create customized swallowing exercises to better meet their patients’ needs.
        • Charles Wong of CarePros was interviewed by Canadian Business on walking the DEI talk after his company made the inaugural Brookfield Institute for Innovation + Entrepreneurship’s New Innovators List. The new ranking recognizes Canadian companies that take a progressive stance in their work.
        • Spinal anesthesia is neither safer nor more effective than general anesthesia for hip surgeries, according to a University of Alberta study. It was previously believed that spinal anesthesia was the better option in these cases, but research co-authored by Derek Dillane suggests that this assumption was based on small and old studies, reports Folio.
        • A University of Alberta researcher and collaborators in the United States have created a free, online risk calculator that they say could reduce the number of unnecessary and invasive biopsies for prostate cancer. Such biopsies only detect cancer 25% to 30% of the time, but the complications of the procedure are significant. “Anything we can do before the biopsy to determine whether the patient really needs a biopsy is very important for patient care,” surgeon and assistant professor Adam Kinnaird told Folio.

Events

Have a suggestion for a future edition? Send it to hello@taprootedmonton.ca for consideration.

Become a “Roundup Cultivator” and sponsor Taproot Edmonton to help them chronicle health innovation in Edmonton. Learn more

Health Innovation Roundup
Health Innovation Roundup