On October 8th, HealthChain hosted a significant meeting in Brussels, bringing together ecosystems stakeholders from the HealthChain project to promote interregional cooperation, enlarging the outrich of the project by onborading 5 Mirror regions. The meeting, organized to encourage networking and knowledge-sharing, marked a key moment in the project’s journey to enhance interregional cooperation and innovation.
HealthChain focuses on codeveloping demand-driven digital health solutions between healthcare organizations (HOs) and IT companies. These solutions are designed to address real-world healthcare challenges and improve patient care across Europe. The project brings together regional actors from across Europe to collaborate, exchange best practices, and develop innovative health solutions through their respective ecosystems with the aim to have an impact in the regional competitiveness. While the Founding Regions (Murcia, Centro Portugal, Western Slovenia, Primorsko-Goranska, and East Netherlands) have laid the foundation, the Mirror Regions (Navarra, Western Greece, Castilla y León, Flanders, and North-West Romania) are now set to replicate and further develop the model with the support of the Founding Regions.
The meeting opened with an interactive workshop to identify and share experiences and best practices when implementing the HealthChain model. The discussion focused on the identification of unmet needs for innovation, the launch of open calls for companies who can solve the proposed challengers, the co-creation of innovative solutions and measures to ensure the solutions are adopted after the pilot, if succesful.
Through a structured brainstorming session, “Boosting the business support: identifying regional resources and needs.” participants from both Founding and Mirror Regions worked together to map out the internal resources, initiatives, and gaps that exist within their regions to support the cocreation process and the scale up of the solutions. This exercise allowed each region to identify potential synergies and areas where they could offer or receive support from their counterparts. By identifying gaps in resources and expertise, the regions can effectively leverage each other’s strengths to enhance business support for IT companies and healthcare organizations across the HealthChain ecosystem.
Disclaimer: The HealthChain project is funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency (EISMEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
