The Digital Health Rewired headlines today have been dominated by health secretary Matt Hancock as he delivered a keynote address this morning. Here is a roundup of the key moments.

The day kicked off with the leadership team from NHSX. Simon Eccles, CCIO and deputy CEO, said the NHS is in “recovery mode” following the coronavirus pandemic.

“There has never been a more important time to use digital tools to help generate efficiency in the service,” he added.

While NHSX CIO, Sonia Patel, spoke about the ‘What Good Looks Like’ programme. She said the framework will take into consideration the experiences from the last few years (including Covid-19) to show how digital transformation can be done in health.

Finally, CNIO Natasha Phillips listed her three key priorities for nursing in 2021; what good looks like for nurses, safety, confidence and stability; and standardising the fundamentals of nursing care.

Phillips added that the Digital Health CNIO Network has helped grow the importance of the CNIO role, saying she now has senior nurses standing alongside her to harness the powers of digital technology.

Aspiring for digital in the NHS

After that, we heard from secretary of state for health and social care, Matt Hancock, who delivered a live keynote address.

A main highlight from the speech was the exclusive news that a further 32 trusts have been named in the second wave of the Digital Aspirant programme.

Seven trusts will receive up to £6 million over three years to deliver their digital ambitions and a further 25 will receive seed funding of £250,000 each to develop digital strategies.

Hancock also told audiences that he is looking into creating “a consistent data platform” which would see patient data separated from the application layer.

Final Pitchfest finalist is revealed

Over the lunchtime break, the last Pitchfest finalist was revealed.

Tekihealth Solutions, a remote diagnostic solution that helps provide clinicians offer immediate medical intervention has won the last heat and is through to the live final on 19 March.

Our four finalists are:

• Concentric Health
• MediShout
• Peppy Health
• Tekihealth Solutions

Congratulations to @tekihealth, winners of Pitchfest Heat 4! They will compete in tomorrow's live final at 1.25pm pic.twitter.com/I0zw62Imdb

— Digital Health Rewired (@DHRewired) March 18, 2021

Electric AI

Then in the afternoon, delegates were treated to a host of excellent keynotes during the Digital Transformation of Medicine session. One key line was from Dr Christian Guttmann, global head of AI and data at TietoEVRY, who said that artificial intelligence and data-driven solutions will be as “critical to organisations as electricity”.

Elsewhere, Dr Nadine Hachach-Haram, founder of Proximie and innovation lead at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital, said that while medicine had made significant advances the way surgery is performed “didn’t adapt it to this new, fourth technological revolution”.