We recently had an opportunity to talk to Anne Moen, Professor at the University of Oslo and Coordinator of Gravitate Health project, in anticipation of her participation in our HLTH Europe Partner Programme.
Prof. Moen will be speaking in the “Research to Reality: Scale Up, Deployment and Investment Opportunities” session co-hosted by Digital Health Uptake and moderated by Karolina Mackiewicz, ECHAlliance’s Innovation Director.
This session is of interest for both public and private sector partners, offering a unique platform to learn about the latest innovations in interoperability, AI, and women’s health. Participants will explore strategies for transitioning these solutions from research to widespread use, fostering collaborative learning and exploration between stakeholders.
Let’s dive into Anne’s insights.
1) In your opinion, what are the challenges in scaling up digital health innovations from research projects to widespread deployment within healthcare systems and how can we address them effectively?
This is a complex question since the health care market is quite regulated and the opportunities in itself can be limited even if a research project yields promising results with attractive, working outputs. In my opinion there are a few challenges, like “pilotitis”, maturity or readiness of R&D output for full-scale deployment, as well as limited capacity, awareness or opportunities for deployment into a complex health system. “Pilotitis” is an expression for small-scale pilots prepared in an R&D that fail to scale up. The question of why “pilotitis” is important to explore if we want to see a vibrant digital health ecosystem that goes beyond reliance on project funding. It is quite common to embark on R&D with a new research focus rather than planning for a next step in an R&D trajectory where the project actively builds on outputs of a previous pilot.
A related topic that represents a set of challenges for deployment is that promising R&D outputs are not mature enough for full scale deployment and reaching sufficient readiness and robustness to support the actual everyday work processes can be compromised. The logics, requirements and focus in a research project is often quite different than within the health care systems. Therefore, making sure there are early and productive interactions with all intended users and deployment areas is paramount, and utilising the “ecosystem” approach as an arena for such processes can mitigate some of the challenges. Going forward I would very much welcome clarifications of what it would take for any R&D project to prepare promising results that are fit for deployment, and that the health systems that are essentially “deployment sites” develop and share insights and qualities of digital health innovation that would spike “procurement capacity”. We can learn and prepare more “market ready” digital health innovations if there also is alignment to capacity in the healthcare system or for health purposes by civil society to stimulate uptake and use of a true digital health innovation.
2) Could you provide examples of successful strategies or partnerships that have accelerated the adoption of digital health solutions from research projects?
Every research partnership should be vigilant on the challenges inherent in the “pilotitis” phenomenon and entertain discussions to balance the perspective that a prepared and tested digital health solution is fit for wider use and help address what it takes to drive uptake in the healthcare system in important priority areas. For me “successful strategies or partnership” should be seen as part of the wider context of future use of a digital health solution. For sure approaches that bring the necessary perspectives and stakeholders together comes with lots of potential for deployment ready solutions and accelerate uptake. Bringing in the experiences from the Public-Private Partnership Gravitate-Health, I would say that we as an IHI – project have advantages being a truly multidisciplinary and trans-sectoral partnership to harness our opportunities to prepare deployable digital solutions. As Coordinator I see that we have achieved a lot already towards adoption when members of our consortium come together to address our rather complex problem – which making medicinal product information (ePI) more valuable and useful for all patients – mobilise our different expertise, contribute experiences and engage with larger networks and activities around us. The ECHAlliance contribution with engaging a selection of the ecosystems in Europe and globally has been a strategy that really contributes to prepare for adoption.
3) Why should participants of HLTH Europe attend the session “Research to reality: scale up, deployment and investment opportunities”
I look forward to this HLTH Europe session, and expect that participants will engage and contribute to experience exchange and improve our capacity to better understand how to mitigate challenges inherent in taking promising research outputs to scale, and prepare R&D products for deployment in the real world for real problems.
Anne Moen’s insights highlight the complexities and potential strategies for scaling up digital health solutions from research to real-world deployment.
As we prepare HLTH Europe, we are eager to facilitate discussions that bridge the gap between innovation and implementation.
The session “Research to Reality” promises to be a valuable opportunity for stakeholders to collaborate, share experiences, and drive the adoption of cutting-edge digital health technologies.
To join us, register now here with our ECHAlliance discount code: HE24_ECH150 to save €150!
