Real World Evidence, Emerging Capability,
and Implications for Clinical Practice

Presenter: Rich Andrews
CEO and Co-Founder, Univa Health founder, Healios

When: Tuesday afternoon May 26th 2026: 2:00-5:00 pm

Venue: The GAS Building, Trinity College School of Nursing & Midwifery, D’Olier Street, Dublin 2.

CPD points: 3 hours

Cost: €35.00

Tickets limited to 35 delegates: Ticket Tailor

As we hear so much nowadays about AI and its potential in many areas of our lives, this presentation gives us a unique opportunity to explore and understand the implications of artificial intelligence for assessment and treatment of eating disorders. Conference Networking Ireland is delighted to host Rich Andrews, (UK) UNIVA Health founder to demonstrate how AI has the potential to transform eating disorders care.

Presentation Overview

The first portion of the presentation will offer psychiatrists and mental health leaders a grounded, clinically oriented view of how digital technology and artificial intelligence are beginning to reshape the eating disorder pathway. Drawing on more than 14 years of experience leading digital transformation of mental health services across the UK and the US, the presenter will move beyond hype to examine what is actually working, what is emerging, and what clinicians must critically consider as these tools enter routine practice.

The presentation will walk attendees through the full eating disorder pathway, using real world case studies to illustrate how digital tools are enhancing care at every stage: from earlier identification and intervention in primary care, to intensifying clinician led treatment within community eating disorder services, through to hospital admission and the critical post discharge period. It will also examine the growing role of digital in generating richer patient insights, enabling smarter caseload management, and strengthening relapse prevention across the pathway.

Throughout, the presenter will share practical learnings from having driven large scale service transformation nationally and internationally, including the organisational, cultural, and regulatory enablers that distinguish successful digital adoption from failed pilots.

How AI is Likely to Impact
Eating Disorder Research, Assessment, and Treatment

The second portion of the presentation will examine the trajectory of AI across three clinical domains.

In research

In research, AI is accelerating phenotyping of eating disorders, integrating genomic, microbiomic, behavioural, and clinical data to surface subtypes that may respond differently to treatment. It is also enabling faster synthesis of the global evidence base and improving the design of adaptive clinical trials.

In assessment

In assessment, AI has the potential to improve the detection of eating disorders in primary care, supporting differential diagnosis (including ARFID, atypical anorexia, and binge eating disorder), and generating continuous, real world measures of risk through passive monitoring, conversational assessment, and digital biomarkers. This offers the potential to move from episodic, self reported assessment to continuous, objective, ecologically valid measurement.

In treatment

In treatment, digital and AI has a role in personalising therapeutic content, guiding clinician decision making at the point of care, scaling structured interventions to address workforce shortages, and providing 24/7 between session support to patients and families. Early evidence suggests these tools can extend the therapeutic alliance rather than replace it, and can meaningfully reduce clinician burden.

Implications for Clinical Practice: Opportunities and Risks

Attendees will leave with a balanced view of the implications for their own practice and services.

Opportunities include earlier identification and intervention, meaningfully improved access for underserved populations, personalised and precision informed treatment, better continuity of care across the pathway, richer data for shared decision making, reduced clinician administrative burden, and new capacity to support families and carers who have historically been left on the margins of the care system.

Risks and considerations include clinical safety and the management of high risk presentations in digital environments, the quality and representativeness of training data, algorithmic bias, the regulatory and evidentiary standards required for clinical grade AI, data governance and patient confidentiality, the risk of deskilling if tools are adopted uncritically, equity of access across digitally excluded populations, and the ethical questions raised by increasingly autonomous AI agents in mental health care.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the session, attendees will be able to describe the current and emerging applications of digital and AI technology across the eating disorder pathway, critically appraise the evidence and limitations of these tools, identify opportunities to incorporate digitally enabled care into their own services, and recognise the clinical, ethical, and governance considerations required for safe and equitable adoption.

An interactive debate will be part of the session where attendees will be encouraged to share their learnings and insights as well as highlight some of the barriers to digital transformation and adoption.

Who is Rich Andrews?

Rich is a healthcare entrepreneur driven by a passion for solving the pain points of health systems worldwide, with the goal of creating a healthier, more accessible future for all. In 2012, after witnessing close family members and friends struggle to access appropriate support for mental health and neurological conditions, he founded Healios, his first health tech company. Under his leadership, Healios grew to become the UK's largest digital health clinic supporting children and young people with complex mental health and neurodevelopmental needs. He later extended this model into the United States under the brand Meliora Health, further broadening access to evidence based care. While leading Healios, Rich observed a rapid rise in referrals for people struggling with disordered eating, highlighting a growing and urgent unmet need. Recognising the complexity of the problem, he co‑founded Univa Health in 2024 with a mission to build a world leading platform that empowers healthcare teams with precision tools to transform care, access, and outcomes for people with eating disorders.

Before his entrepreneurial career, Rich built a deep understanding of global healthcare markets through international roles in major biopharmaceutical companies, launching innovative medicines and living and working in the United States and Switzerland. Rich is Chair of the Board of Neuly, an AI platform for paediatric neurodevelopmental conditions, and serves on the Board of Ortus‑iHealth, a digital cardiology company. He is a strategic advisor to several digital health companies, guiding them on growth and impact, and is Co‑Guest Editor of a 2026 Digital and AI Health Collection for the Journal of Eating Disorders. He is a former Board Member of the Mental Health Network at the NHS Confederation and former Co‑Chair of its national Digital Mental Health Forum. He is also an active investor in early stage companies driving meaningful societal change.