Digital innovations for clinical needs: promising results by CleverHealth network ecosystem
Spinverse has been coordinating the extensive CleverHealth Network (CHN) ecosystem led by Helsinki University Hospital (HUS) for a good five years now. Business Finland recently granted an extension to funding of this health care growth engine. This enables CHN to continue the work in harnessing health data, AI and Machine Learning with an aim to co-develop efficient care paths and improve patients’ daily lives. The first solutions developed in CHN projects are already progressing towards commercialisation and new joint projects are being built as we speak.
Next steps: productization and commercialization
The CHN projects are, for instance, providing solutions in the diagnosis and treatment of acute leukemia cerebral hemorrhage and some rare diseases. The project also seeks to help in remote care of gestational diabetes and dialysis patients. Three of the research and development projects have now reached the stage where companies lead the productization and commercialization work within the development project.
In the CHN project focusing on acute leukemia, led by Professor Kimmo Porkka from HUS Cancer center, a clinical tumour board application has been developed through collaboration of HUS, TietoEvry, Productivity Leap and Hematoscope. It will be used in weekly oncological meetings for clinical patent work as well as in research. The project uses novel data sources, for example by quick analysis of the microscope results by means of computer vision. The aim is to automate cancer diagnostics and ease the election to suitable treatment.
The Home dialysis project led by Nephrologist Virpi Rauta has implemented an automated end-to-end service solution to provide a safe home-based dialysis for dialysis patients, thus easing their daily life. At the same time, medical staff has access to an easy-to-use user interface providing real-time data which makes the patient care efficient and brings feeling of safety for both the patient and health care experts. The project partners include Aalto University, University of Helsinki and Gillie.
The CHN project partners HUS, Fujitsu and Elisa have co-developed a Mobile application to treat gestational diabetes, which improves the glycaemic control for expecting mothers by bringing real-time data on glycaemic levels and lifestyle choices of mothers-to-be. The solution entails user interfaces for both patients and medical staff as well as their integration into a service solution improving the self-care of gestational diabetes. This enables mothers-to-be to see the influence of their daily behaviour on their own health, thus contributing to the wellbeing of the baby. University of Helsinki and Aalto have brought research contributions to this project.
AI Head Analysis project gains international recognition
AI Head Analysis project led by Miikka Korja, Head of Section at the Department of Neurosurgery at HUS together with CGI and Planmeca is developing an AI-based tool-set for analysing head computed tomography (CT) scans to identify and localise a life-threatening cerebrovascular disorder, subarachnoid hemorrhage. The accuracy of the recently created algorithm is excellent and has the potential to significantly improve the timely diagnosis of patients. The fresh research results have just been published in the prestigious Neurology journal. In addition, the artificial intelligence model has been made accessible to the entire research community for anyone to test its functionality.
Spinverse experts continue to facilitate the work within the CleverHealth Network
The CleverHealth Network ecosystem organised an annual seminar on 18th January 2023 where the progress of joint development projects within CHN was highlighted thorough presentations by project leads from HUS and key companies. Markku Heino and Laura Koponen facilitated the panel discussion with experts from HUS, Roche, Aiforia Technologies and Fujitsu, focusing on theme “How to make business with health care data”. The discussion was largely related to the global potential of Finnish know-how in the area and how to overcome the obstacles in the business environment for data-driven health care, which is still rather complex.
Markku Heino, who has been coordinating the CHN work at Spinverse for several years, sees the positive development in the ecosystem. “CleverHealth Network ecosystem is well established today with clear plans and working mode. Our first projects have achieved great results which are now being exploited, and several new project ideas are in preparation. In the previous two-year period, we made systematic internationalisation activities. Thanks to this work, CHN has gained wider publicity and global recognition as a good benchmark of a well-functioning health sector ecosystem,” he says.
Katariina Rouvinen, Ecosystem Coordinator at HUS, concludes: “As CHN heads to its next two-year period, the key is to launch new projects and increase our international collaboration as well as commercialise and scale up the results we have already achieved. We are pleased to continue our close collaboration with Spinverse to make this happen in practice.”