Sheffield Children's Hospital

Sheffield Children’s Hospital is a leading partner in the Paediatric Excellence Initiative, driving innovation in child health technologies, data science, artificial intelligence and digital healthcare. Working alongside other PEI partners, Sheffield is helping develop the next generation of technologies that enable earlier diagnosis, personalized treatment and improved care for children and young people.

Research Focus: Child Health Technology, Digital Health, Data Science, Medical Devices, Artificial Intelligence

Sheffield Children’s Hospital leads the PEI’s Applied Child Health Informatics agenda through its Applied Child Health Innovation (ACHI) programme and the NIHR HealthTech Research Centre in Paediatrics and Child Health. Our work brings together clinicians, engineers, researchers, industry partners, children and families to develop technologies that address real-world challenges in paediatric healthcare through our 3 core missions:

Mission 1 – Develop novel technologies and repurpose existing devices to generate accurate, clinically useful data for paediatric care.

Mission 2 – Create innovative pathways of care through data acquisition and remote monitoring to reduce hospital admissions and improve outcomes

Mission 3 – Build trust in healthcare data sharing and digital technologies by involving children, young people and families throughout the research process.

Through the PEI partnership, Sheffield Children’s Hospital is advancing a portfolio of technology-enabled research projects designed to transform how children access and experience healthcare.

Current innovation areas include:

• Home monitoring technologies for paediatric sleep disorders
• Artificial intelligence and advanced data analytics
• Digital tools to support healthier lifestyles in children and young people
• Remote patient monitoring systems
• Virtual reality-enabled rehabilitation
• Advanced oxygen monitoring technologies for infants and young children

Sheffield Children’s is helping translate cutting-edge technology research into practical solutions that improve children’s healthcare.

Impact to date includes:

• Establishment of collaborative research programmes across all PEI partner sites
• Development of innovative home-monitoring solutions for paediatric respiratory conditions
• Creation of new artificial intelligence applications using large-scale child health datasets
• Advancement of virtual reality technologies for paediatric rehabilitation
• Delivery of proof-of-concept projects addressing unmet clinical needs
• Development of national approaches to data sharing and information governance
• Growth of collaborative research opportunities between clinicians, researchers, engineers and industry partners

The programme is creating a stronger national infrastructure for child health technology research, ensuring that innovations can move more rapidly from concept to clinical practice.

Developing future leaders in child health research is a central objective of Sheffield Children’s PEI activity. The PEI has created new opportunities for emerging researchers to develop skills, build networks and undertake nationally important paediatric research.

Achievements include:

• Co-development of a cross-site PEI PhD programme
• Collaborative supervision between Sheffield Children's and Great Ormond Street Hospital
• Support for doctoral researchers working across health technologies, artificial intelligence, rehabilitation and digital health
• Opportunities for researchers to access expertise across multiple institutions
• Participation in PEI networking, training and development activities
• Cross-disciplinary collaborations spanning clinical, academic, engineering and technology sectors

Children, young people and families play a central role in shaping Sheffield Children’s research and innovation programmes

Through collaboration with the national Children and Young People Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) Network, Sheffield Children’s works with patients and families to:

• Co-design research priorities
• Shape the development of new technologies
• Improve accessibility and acceptability of innovations
• Build trust in data-driven healthcare
• Inform information governance and data-sharing practices
• Support the development of patient-centred research programmes

Current activities include work to develop a national framework for information governance and multi-organisational data sharing, ensuring that future healthcare technologies reflect the needs and expectations of children, young people and families.