The Nashville and West Yorkshire regions have announced plans to create a joint HeathTech Bridge initiative, and Womble Bond Dickinson Partner John Scannapieco has been instrumental in leading this innovative effort.

Both Nashville and West Yorkshire are hubs for healthcare technology. Under a signed Memorandum of Understanding, the two regions will work together to identify mutual challenges and to share best practices. The areas of cooperation will include digital health, personalized medicine, health services delivery, biotechnology, life sciences, and AI in healthcare.

The transatlantic Memorandum of Understanding was signed Oct. 7 as an outreach project of the inaugural Global Health Innovators Summit in Nashville. The Summit, held on Oct. 9, brought together global health innovators, academic institutions, capital, and government leaders to discuss the transformative potential of emerging technologies in healthcare and Nashville’s place as a global hub of health innovation.  

Scannapieco serves as Honorary Consul from Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Tennessee. He helped organize the Summit and facilitated the agreement between Nashville and West Yorkshire, a region in Northern England that includes the city of Leeds. The Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce also helped broker the deal and organize the Summit.

Officials from both regions say the working agreement will improve outcomes for patients, increase the pace of innovation, and bolster trade.

In a West Yorkshire press release, Scannapieco said, “The healthcare challenges we face here in Nashville are similar to the ones seen in West Yorkshire, and in many communities around the world. Healthcare providers must address such issues as caring for an aging population, allocating limited resources, and dealing with staffing shortages.

“Since these challenges are global, our approach to finding solutions needs to be global, too. Both of our communities are hubs of health technology innovation, and by working together and sharing knowledge and ideas via the Health Tech Bridge, the people of Nashville and West Yorkshire will both benefit.”

Click here to read more about the Nashville-West Yorkshire HeathTech Bridge initiative in Venture Nashville Connections