We are very glad to feature our Norwegian Smart Care Cluster as our Ecosystem of the Month of September.
What is the approximate stakeholder breakdown of your ecosystem?
Norwegian Smart Care Cluster is a national and international collaboration arena for large and small companies, municipalities, hospitals, public organizations, user organizations, academia / R&D institutions and investors.
The cluster works to ensure that we and our members take part in the development of sustainable health solutions for the future. The cluster has 280 members.
Who are the top 3 champions from your Ecosystem?
Dignio: Dignio was established in 2012 with the clear ambition to have an impact on healthcare systems and the lives of patients at a global scale. The company also offers products for flexible medication support, and their ambition is to be a leading provider of welfare technology solutions. The award-winning platform enables healthcare providers to monitor and follow up an increased number of patients in a safe and innovative way. The technical solutions give patients flexibility in everyday life and an overall increased quality of life. Read more here.
Sensio: Sensio started in 2009 with a focus on making smart home technology public property. Since then, they have installed several thousand smart homes around Norway, and have specialized in delivering solutions in the welfare and care sector. Sensio offers welfare technology and home automation solutions. By offering a complete, seamless and flexible technical infrastructure, Sensio controls the entire flow from sensory and IoT devices to the user interface. More about the company here.
CheckWare: This company provides solutions for digital patient involvement. CheckWare enable patients to actively participate in their own treatment through digital clinical assessments, remote patient monitoring and internet-based treatment programs. Manual and paper-based routines and diagnostic-specific solutions are replaced by a complete digital solution that can be adapted to any care pathway and integrated with other clinical systems such as electronic patient record systems (EPR). Do you want to know more? Read more here.
What EU funding/collaboration are you involved with, or you would like to be part of?
Norway is part of the European Digital Innovation Hubs (EDIH) in the Digital Europe programme, and the Norwegian Smart Care Cluster will provide our test centre services into the Norwegian consortium – Nemonoor – to speed up the use of artificial intelligence.
The cluster was part of a European consortium – AIR4Health that unfortunately did not win the Testing and Experimentation Facilities call also under the Digital Europe Programme for AI in Health.
Norwegian Smart Care Cluster is part of a consortium bidding for an ‘Innovative health Inititiative’ under the Horizon Europe programme.
It is interesting to be part of applications that have industry and companies as key partners in the digital-health space and calls that are closer to the innovation and implementation side rather than basic research.
What are the key priorities and themes for your ecosystem?
The cluster¡s vision is: “Generating impact through smart care solutions” and the purpose is to build the Norwegian health industry by promoting sustainable solutions that provide a better life for users as well as cost-effective and quality-assured deliveries of health and care services.
Scaleup and internationalisation are two key priorities for the cluster. Two important projects to support these priorities are:
- EIRAccelerator: Norwegian Smart Care Cluster have launched a digital growth program tailored for companies in the healthcare industry. We have built this program together with the partners: Validé, Aleap and Norway Health Tech.
- Norwegian Smart Care Lab: The cluster has developed a test centre. The lab tests and verifies products, prototypes and ideas for the health industry. The goal is to expand the lab, and the cluster is working towards that goal together with Norway Health Tech and Oslo Cancer Cluster.
What is your primary strength as an ecosystem?
The knowledge and the network in digital health and e-health is where the cluster is especially strong. The ecosystem with 280 members from large and small companies, municipalities, hospitals, public organizations, user organizations, academia / R&D institutions and investors gives power and strength to the cluster.
Committed members are important, the magic happens when the ecosystem work together towards the goal: Generating impact through smart care solutions!
Who are your clinical champions either hospital, clinicians, specialities?
Norwegian Smart Care Cluster are blessed with great networks in the municipalities, but also hospitals and the government, and of course the companies. What makes the cluster special is the impact the stakeholders can make when working together. E-health Vestland and Helseinn are two very strong municipal network in the ecosystem. The cluster is part of the national cluster program and aims for collaborations that can provide and speed up the smart solutions for the future.
