Associate Professor Iain Hennessey

Clinical Director & Co-founder, Alder Hey Hospital Innovation Centre

Associate Professor Iain Hennessey

Associate Professor Iain Hennessey

Associate Professor Iain Hennessey is an emergency paediatric surgeon and clinical director of innovation at the new, state-of-the-art, Alder Hey Children’s Health Park. He is a passionate advocate of innovation and disruption and has grown a team of 50 innovators to make a real impact on the lives of young people, in what is a notoriously difficult environment to innovate, the health sector. As a speaker he focuses on innovation and disruption in healthcare, as well as purpose and resilience and wellbeing.

Themes

Innovation and Disruption
Purpose
Resilience and Wellbeing

Biography

Iain’s time is split between operating on children that range from tiny premature babies with congenital abnormalities up to 16 year olds involved in car crashes, while developing advanced healthcare technologies as clinical director for innovation.

At Alder Hey he has created a ‘Living Hospital’ – putting kindness and caring at the heart of how they innovate. He is passionate about making the child’s (the patient’s) experience as comfortable as possible through the use of digital technologies.

Notable achievements have included forming partnerships with large multi-national companies such as Sony and IBM, inventing new medical devices and building a unique underground 1000sqm innovation facility for collaboration with the tech sector. In particular he has led the use of 3D printing, material science, artificial intelligence and the use of rapid prototyping in healthcare. All of this was recognised nationally with the prestigious Health Service Journal Improving Care with Technology Award.

He graduated from the University of Edinburgh with an honours degrees in Medicine, Surgery and Anatomical sciences, before going on to train as a paediatric surgeon in the United Kingdom and Australia.