It will be no surprise that in the last few months all of our members and ecosystems have been impacted by COVID-19 pandemic and for many the challenge to break down silos, transform health and social care as well as create economic opportunities has never had a sharper focus. During this time we have been heartened by the continual growth in our Ecosystem Network and also in the speed in which we have all moved online. We created the Pop-Up Ecosystem to meet this challenge back in early March and have been running a programme of regular, permanent multistakeholder events online themed around different areas or regions impacted by the pandemic. You can find out more about these Ecosystem developments HERE
New ECHAlliance Ecosystems
Over the last 6 months we are pleased to say that our Ecosystem network has continued to grow and at a scale and pace to match 2019. Since January we have seen ecosystems from Germany develop and join us including Medical Valley which are one of Germany’s leading innovation ecosystem targeting healthcare management. Soon to join them will be another ecosystem launch in the Hess Region Health for All Ecosystem with its first ecosystem scheduled for July 27th (details to come soon). Two very different German Ecosystems launching before the German Presidency of the European Union. We know from our members just how important the German market is and also how much they are keen to connect and collaborate with both our existing and new ecosystems and members in Germany.
You can check out an Interview with the lead of Medical Valley, Jorg Trinkwalter, to find out more about them.
After our successful launch at the end of 2019 of the Finnish Network of ECHAlliance digital health Ecosystems in Helsinki at the end of the Finnish presidency, we were really pleased when Health Capital Helsinki also joined our Ecosystem network and we know of many connections there that are also of great use for our members both in Finland and globally. This now means we have 7 Finnish Digital Health Ecosystems with more to follow and they are recently met to talk about strategies to engage with the rest of our ECHAlliance network.
In another very exciting development we have finally seen the launch of what many of our members have asked for with the first ever Norwegian Digital Health Ecosystem with the Norwegian Smart Care Cluster who are the national and international collaboration hub for companies, healthcare providers, R&D institutions and financials players in Norway. More information about them can be found HERE
Lastly and most recently, we were very excited to see the launch of our first ever Lithuanian Health Technology Ecosystem in partnership with the Lithuanian Biotechnology Association whose goal is to solve regional and global life quality and environmental challenges. Again another area of interest for our members and one you can find out more about HERE
During the rest of June and July we are looking forward to the launch of further Ecosystems in Canada, Argentina, India and will update members here about them.
Pop-Up Ecosystems
With the impact of the pandemic stopping all face to face ecosystems in mid March we recognised the need to develop, build and serve an agile platform that would help our Ecosystem network and therefore our members connect, collaborate and continue to join the dots during what for many has been the most pressing emergency.
These needed to be short, agile and most importantly online and recorded so we have developed a programme of Pop-Up Ecosystems in the style of pop ups in towns and cities that offer the platform to collaborate and share best practice. What this also gave us was the ability for the first time to successfully allow multiple ecosystems and members to connect online either during the ecosystems or with the new ability to be able to record and engage at a suitable time later.
We have now held the first of the programme themed around COVID-19 targeting the following areas:
Rapid Deployment of Existing Digital Health Solutions
Webinar entre ecosistemas de salud de Iberoamérica
Home and Social Care in COVID times
Mental Health and preventing what could be the second pandemic of COVID
We have also been able to share the content and collaboration opportunities quicker online through social media and will be continuing these during June and July targeting:
Dementia and the impact of COVID
Data Donation – What has changed in COVID times?
Matching Demand and Supply during COVID times
We will be returning to the area of Mental Health and also more on rapid roll out of Telemedicine later in the summer.
Added to the thematic areas we have also been able to offer direct links to new partners and countries with the beginning of a network of new ecosystems in Latin America that began back with our first Latin America Pop Up Ecosystem and last week with our first ever Pop-Up Ecosystem in Argentina .
In July we will also launch a series of directed collaboration PopUp Ecosystems targeting firstly Hess in Germany; Greece; India and its route to telemedicine; Canada and Europe targeting Isolation and then Australia and Europe targeting Healthy Ageing. Details of these will be on our new dedicated Pop-Up Ecosystem Webpage
