• The projects are funded with €108,104 from the Regional Government of Navarre’s Ministry of Universities, Innovation and Digital Transformation within the framework of the inDemand Navarre initiative

On September 28, 2020, Agurtzane Martínez Ortigosa, the Director General of Innovation of the Government of Navarre, approved the results of the first call for “inDemand Navarre: Demand-Driven Innovation in Health” grants, in which ICT companies were selected to offer their digital services to address the challenges posed by teams at the Navarre Health Service – Osasunbidea (SNS-O).

The four companies selected (iAR, Consultoría Informática Adhoc, TedCas and Desarrollos ANASINF) have relevant experience in the development of industrial and business solutions, which they will now apply to the health industry. They were awarded a total grant amount of €108,104 to start up four innovative tools designed to cover priority healthcare needs.

Innovative Joint Development Process

The solutions will be implemented in an eight-month joint development process in which the health professionals who detected the specific need will work in cooperation with high-tech firms. This innovative approach within the framework of the inDemand Navarre model is promoted by the Navarre Ministry of Universities, Innovation and Digital Transformation and the Navarre Ministry of Economic and Business Development through the European Center for Business Innovation of Navarre (CEIN) and the Navarre Development Company (Sodena). The Navarrabiomed Innovation Support Unit and the Navarre Ministry of Health also help coordinate the inDemand model among all the institutional agents of Navarre.

Potential users of each application will become involved in the process in coming months. The ultimate goal is to obtain functional prototypes that can be validated in real contexts and then included in the SNS-O to benefit patients.

Kick-Off Meetings

In the first half of October, the companies had the first kick-off meetings with the participating teams of healthcare professionals in order to define the technical specifications of the solutions in greater detail, which necessarily involved the transfer of specialized knowledge from the professionals to the companies.

Industrial Augmented Reality (iAR) will develop the ConectaSOS solution with Fermina Beramendi, a doctor in the Outpatient Emergency Service, who participates in representation of professionals from advanced life support ambulances (ALS ambulances), SOS Navarra and Emergency Services at the Hospital Complex of Navarre (CHN). This initiative, led by Jon Navarlaz, Managing Director of iAR, was awarded €25,364 to create a new communication system that will improve response times and agent coordination in patient management and transport in emergency situations.

Consultoría Informática Adhoc will start up MiCentro in collaboration with the SNS-O’s Support Service for Clinical Management and Healthcare Continuity in Primary Care Management. The project is coordinated by Sergio Chivite, the Service’s technical expert, and was awarded the amount of €22,740. David Santamaría from Consultoría Informática Adhoc will coordinate the proposal of creating a new SMS communication channel to improve management of doctor’s appointments, and the proposal of having healthcare centers send relevant information to their patients and users.

The company addressing the QuiroHelp challenge is TedCas Medical Systems, which was awarded €30,000 to implement the project. Jesús Miguel Pérez, the Director of TedCas, is leading the project and working with professionals from the CHN’s Service of General Surgery Ward B for the development of a chatbot service to improve the response times of scrub nurses in CHN operating rooms. Nurse Diana Marcilla is coordinating the healthcare team involved.

Finally, Desarrollos ANASINF was awarded €30,000 to develop the app UMD360, whose aim is to send gynecological cancer patients all the integrated and coordinated information and services designed by the Gynecological Cancer Multidisciplinary Unit. Ainhoa Castellano, the Director of Desarrollos ANASINF, is leading this innovative solution by working in coordination with Juan Carlos Muruzábal, Head of the CHN Obstetrics and Gynecology Service.

The inDemand Initiative

The European inDemand project is an initiative that receives funding from the Horizon 2020 program. Three pilot regions are participating: Murcia Region (Spain), Oulu Region (Finland) and Paris Region (France). The aim of the project is to check if the support model for demand-driven innovation in digital health is sustainable and applicable to other European regions called mirror regions and jointly known as the inDemand community. Navarre is participating as a mirror region and benefiting from the project’s methodology and success stories, but does not receive EU funding.