Insights

“Transforming Healthcare by bringing together diverse sectors” is the key challenge that the Innovative Health Initiative (IHI) aims to address to build a strong society. Digital technologies in mental health care, advanced therapies for rare diseases, and improving hospital care are among the topics underlined in for IHI’s forthcoming calls in 2023. As the healthcare systems are under more pressure than ever and many diseases still lack effective treatments, there is an urgent need for more innovative and integrated approaches.

The European Commission recently funded AICCELERATE, a multiparty project aiming to develop AI solutions to improve patient care and hospital processes. The goal of the “AI ACCELERATOR – a Smart Hospital Care Pathway Engine” project is to demonstrate the scalability of the AI solutions for different types of healthcare use cases. The project consortium led by Helsinki University Hospital (HUS) consists of 16 partners from eight European countries.

Since its launch in 2017, Spinverse has been an active facilitator for the partners of CleverHealth Network that develops top-class health tech solutions to solve clinical challenges to support patients, care personnel and clinical researchers. eCare for Me is one of the subprojects of the ecosystem where Helsinki University Hospital (HUS) nephrologist Virpi Rauta and HUS Chief researcher and Head physician Kimmo Porkka lead their respective research activities together with a group of clinicians, technology companies and university researchers. We asked Virpi and Kimmo how the projects are progressing.

The CleverHealth Network ecosystem is buzzing with activity as the ongoing six co-development projects aim to develop new treatments and solutions to address clearly defined clinical challenges. The product and service innovations under development will use extensive and high-quality health care data of the Helsinki University Hospital (HUS). The projects are characterized by close-knit, multidisciplinary cooperation between HUS clinicians, research institutes and leading health technology and ICT companies.

There is a growing need worldwide for digital health solutions. A new innovation ecosystem coordinated by HUS (The Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa) called CleverHealth Network, brings together the health technology knowhow, healthcare professionals and the precise healthcare data of HUS. The aim of the CleverHealth Network is a turnover of 11 billion euro and export earnings of 7,7 billion euro for the companies in the ecosystem.