Digital Health Coffee Time Briefing ☕

Your morning summary of digital health news, information and events to know about if you want to be “in the know”.

👇 News

🎓 Medical content provider Elsevier has launched StudyFinder AI within education platform ClinicalKey Student, giving students access to AI-powered search grounded in trusted and verifiable medical content. Every response includes citations and links to source materials, helping students quickly find and validate information from resources already widely used across medical education.

🌱 Hanyang University researchers have developed AI-designed shape-shifting microneedles for chronic diabetic wounds, which heal slowly and are highly vulnerable to infection. Inspired by a carnivorous plant, the smart patch closes wounds, fights infection, and delivers regenerative DNA at body temperature. The researchers designed a shape-memory microneedle system capable of actively bending after placement in tissue.

💊 Pharmacy group Puri Pharmacy has announced a partnership with UK digital health company Aide Health to launch AI-powered patient support for people using medicated weight loss services. The move is aimed at improving long-term health outcomes by giving patients additional support between appointments and marks the start of a wider digital healthcare programme that will use conversational AI technology to support patients managing chronic health conditions.

🤝 Medilink North of England and 3M Business Innovation Centre have agreed a strategic partnership to accelerate innovation, commercialisation, and market adoption for health and medical technologies across Yorkshire and the North. The move links 3M’s facilities, expertise, and integrated design and prototyping capabilities with Medilink’s regulatory, market‑access, and commercial knowledge, to help companies access the NHS, investors, and international markets.

🧠 Cinnamon Care Collection has introduced AI‑powered pain‑detection technology across its homes. The UK care group has partnered with PainChek, which has a medical device that uses AI and facial analysis technology to assess pain in individuals who cannot reliably self-report, such as those with dementia. PainChek combines facial‑recognition AI with a structured clinical checklist to detect pain in under three minutes.

❓ Did you know that?

A survey of NHS decision makers indicates the workforce is ambitious about AI but feels pulled in the wrong direction by national strategy and an over-reliance on overseas technology.

Ahead of a new digital health event called AireFest, taking place in Leeds on 9 July, NHS digital and clinical leaders have been surveyed, including trust board executives, CCIOs and digital directors, on AI adoption across the health service.

A total of 96% say the government’s AI strategy for the NHS doesn’t reflect frontline priorities, either only partially aligning, feeling disconnected, or not reflecting them at all. Just one respondent felt fully aligned.

Meanwhile, 78% are concerned about the NHS’s growing reliance on US-based technology providers for critical digital infrastructure, with data sovereignty and patient data security the single biggest worry (50%), and 76% believe the UK has the domestic capability to deliver world-class NHS AI, though most caveat that international partners are still needed in some areas.

Finally, only 6% rate their own organisation as well prepared to adopt AI responsibly and at scale.

📖 What we’re reading

Andy Burnham looks set to become the first ex-health secretary to enter No 10 — with Wes Streeting tipped for No 11.

Jon Hoeksma, founder of Digital Health and founder and chief executive of health IT market intelligence and research business Future Health Intelligence, examines what two former health secretaries running the country might mean for NHS IT investment, the £10bn digitisation pledge already made, and whether a former ex-elected mayor can finally deliver devolution in health.

Read it here.

🚨 Upcoming events

16-17 July 2026, University of Nottingham – Digital Health Summer Schools