Smart Healthcare, the exhibition which took place at Earls Court, could have been blessed with a little more fortune in these still turbulent economic times. Attendance at the central London venue will doubtless have been reduced by the 48 hour tube strike that hit the capital this week. London on tube strike days is not, sadly, a particularly smart place to be.

There were over 50 exhibitors at the show, ranging from household names like Dell and Panasonic, to industry specialists like iSOFT and System C Healthcare and emerging forces such as BlueWare and Differentia Consulting.

As befits a PR man I read through the exhibitor profiles. Many seemed rather rushed shall we say. There were plenty of ‘leading providers’ and ‘specialists’, even some ‘global specialists’ and ‘one stop shops’. From what I read, however, it didn’t seem that many of these ‘healthcare specialists’ were addressing, well, healthcare.

I’m sure they are all doing great work in healthcare really. My point is this. Too much corporate information has become bland PR speak. I know I’m part of said industry, and I’m sure I’ve referred to a ‘leading provider’ or two in my time too, but we need to do better. We need to demonstrate how technology is helping clinicians to boost the patient experience wherever we can. I didn’t get much feel for this at Smart Healthcare.

One company referred to healthcare as being ‘quite unique’. It either is or it isn’t. For me, it summed up the slight lack of conviction on display at the show. Sure healthcare IT has taken a battering in this country of late, but that’s even more reason for the industry to communicate in a robust manner. Lets hope everyone came away inspired by John Humphrys, the Radio 4 Today programme presenter, who is the very definition of robust. His talk on current challenges facing the public sector stole the show.

David