It is well known that an increasingly aging population is one of Europe's social and economic challenges. For the health care industry this means that, according to the new report from Nesta Impact Investments, the current health care system will fail to meet the demands of the population, perhaps as soon as in ten years time. The need now is to build a system that will provide for the anticipated care and support needs, whilst delivering improved quality of life.

Patients need to be able to consult their doctor online. Having to take half a day off work for a 10-minute consultation is a high price to pay when the technology exists that would allow it to be done online from the patient's home or work. For some patients, the travel involved in getting to an appointment is harmful in itself.

If you are looking for the future of healthcare, Coriell Life Sciences (CLS) should be at the top of your list. Coriell have developed a cutting edge innovation that is focused on personalised medicine. This system reads and analyses a patients genome through genetic testing to determine drug efficiency. Ultimately, it will prevent adverse drug reactions and help patients find the most effective drug to combat their illness. CLS has been in the public eye recently after winning the coveted 'IBM SmartCamp Global Entrepreneur Award'.

“Celebrity Diagnosed With Diabetes!” scream the headlines. But despite constant media coverage of the diabetes pandemic, people who don’t have diabetes can rarely tell the differences between type 1 and type 2 diabetes, (and have little or no idea if the disease can be avoided).

NHS England has made £100 million available to fund IT projects that reduce paperwork and increase the time that nurses have to spend with patients. £30 million of the Nursing Technology Fund will be made available for IT projects delivered in 2013 to 2014 and NHS Trusts have until 15th January 2014 to apply for funding. A second £70million tranche will be used to fund IT projects implemented in 2014 to 2015.

Never in human history has the general health of most ordinary people been better than it is now. But paradoxically, there can scarcely ever have been a time when health care has been a more difficult political problem for the governments of advanced countries than it is now.

Cambridge-based Cell Guidance Systems, which provides products and services for stem cell scientists, has successfully raised £242,800 on the equity crowdfunding platform Crowdcube – exceeding its investment target by a massive 142 per cent. Crowdcube has now helped over 70 British businesses to raise a more than £14.5 million.

Gabriel Alvarez has over 30 years of experience as a plastic surgeon, having operated in hospitals including the Hospital for Sick Children Great Ormond Street and University College London. Mr Alvarez also takes a keen interest in technology, beginning when he published a CD ROM course on plastic surgery. 

At first glance the title of this piece may sound counter-intuitive to some readers. After all, there have been phenomenal advances seen in healthcare over the last two decades. Advances in diagnostic processes and treatments have given us state of the art scanners and robotic surgery. The development of new drug therapies have enabled physicians to substantially extend life, and sometimes even offer cure, to those with previously terminal diagnoses. So surely everything is ticking along nicely in the land of healthcare innovation?

The fast data set revolution is being created by you. Every time we text, search, travel or buy we add to the data mountain of some 2.5 billion gigabytes a day that humanity is collectively writing, bringing a new consciousness into existence.