Public procurement of innovative solutions for improving citizens' access to healthcare through integrated or personalised approaches

Expected Outcome

This topic aims at supporting activities that are enabling or contributing to one or several expected impacts of destination “Ensuring equal access to innovative, sustainable, and high-quality healthcare”. To that end, proposals under this topic should aim to deliver results that are directed at, tailored towards and contributing to several of the following expected outcomes:

• Patients and their carers, health authorities and health professionals will benefit from the deployment of innovative solutions, designed around actual clinical needs, that facilitate identification, integration or coordination of care, allowing for personalised, more accessible, inclusive and higher quality of health and care.
• Patients will benefit from personalised approaches, improved care experiences and health outcomes or are more engaged in their care and better equipped to make informed decisions on their health, in collaboration with health professionals.
• Health professionals will be better equipped with, and thus benefit from, improved means for diagnosis, care delivery and/or coordination, with multi-disciplinary approaches and closer patient engagement, thanks to new technologies.
• Health systems will improve their accessibility, coordination mechanisms, effectiveness, inclusivity and resilience, thanks to innovative solutions, with a better use of resources, thus stimulating organisational innovation, cultural transformation within hospitals, and European-level collaboration.

Scope

Public Procurement of Innovative Solutions (PPI)[1] can boost the wider market uptake of high impact innovations in health systems, while enhancing the tools available to providers and improving access to healthcare for citizens. This supports enhancement of social rights[2] and the European economic competitiveness by providing business opportunities and thus incentives to innovate. By acting as early adopters of innovative solutions, procurers can open up new growth markets for the European industry and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)[3]. Joint/collaborative demand-driven initiatives can help create economies of scale and facilitate the wider adoption of innovations in the health sector for the benefits of patients in need.

PPI actions target consortia of procurers with a similar need that want to procure together the deployment of innovative solutions for supporting integration of care or diagnostics for personalised medicine. This topic does not provide direct funding to developers, industry or research organisations to perform research and development. They will be able to respond to the call for tenders launched by consortia of procurers funded under this topic.

Proposals should specify which segment of the patient population they target, the specific organisational and/or technological innovations to be procured, and why the proposed innovative solutions would be fit for purpose adhering, when relevant, to the principles of integrated care[4] or personalised medicine[5].

Examples of target groups that could be covered by this action are: patients at risk of vulnerability such as children and older/frail people with complex needs for health and social care; people with multi-morbidities or non-communicable diseases of high burden; people with both physical and mental health conditions; people living with rare diseases or cancer; persons with disabilities; other groups of patients in need of highly integrated and coordinated care. Proposals should pay attention to how gender and intersectional factors (e.g. caregiving responsibilities, work-related health disparities etc.) affect healthcare access and outcomes.

Proposals should demonstrate, with qualitative and quantitative indicators, how they contribute to the above expected outcomes, clearly describe the application of the principles of integrated care and personalised medicine in the deployed solutions, when relevant. This would also include embedding the innovation in the existing health systems, addressing gaps and avoiding overlaps, while fostering change management across organisations, professions and sectors.

Solutions envisaged within this action are for example digital solutions[6], including Artificial Intelligence (AI) elements, to facilitate delivery of integrated care across hospitals, primary care, Long-Term Care (LTC) facilities and home settings, or technologies that improve routine diagnosis and lead to personalised medicine approach with the health and care setting.

The actions should target first deployment of innovative solutions across different health and care jurisdictions in Europe by engaging public and/or private procurers from each participating country (at national, regional or local level) that have deployment responsibilities and budget control in the provision of health and care services. Procurers will specify, purchase and deploy solutions addressing their relevant and shared unmet needs, while engaging together in a supply and demand side dialogue. Proposals should be based on clearly identified user needs and well-structured deployment plans, explaining how the procurement of the innovative solutions will contribute to the expected outcomes and improve current practice. In addition, cost-effectiveness analyses as well as estimates of the wider economic impact are highly desirable.

Activities covered should include cooperation with policymakers to reinforce national/regional policy frameworks and policies, to raise awareness, for technical assistance and/or capacity building beyond the project, to mainstream PPI implementation and remove obstacles to introduce innovative solutions to the market.

A wide variety of settings are potentially relevant for the implementation of such innovative solutions, for example primary healthcare settings, hospitals, specialised centres, long-term care facilities and home settings. The involvement of end-users (including for analysing the impact of the deployed solutions on health professionals and patients across the care continuum) and the use of cross-sectorial approaches are necessary. When relevant, linkage with ongoing work at national level for the implementation of the European Health Data Space (EHDS)[7] is encouraged. Proposals are encouraged to consider, where relevant, the data, expertise and services offered by European research infrastructures[8] in the health domain.

Transfer and adaptation of solutions and/or interventions from other sectors to healthcare is possible. The topic is open both to innovations bringing improvements mainly based on one specific solution/technology field, as well as to innovations delivering end-to-end solutions that need combinations of different types of innovative elements. Proposals are strongly encouraged to build upon past work and build synergies with ongoing EU-funded initiatives, for example the Joint Actions JADECARE[9] and Xt-EHR[10], the project MyHealth@Myhands[11] and the three co-funded European Partnerships on Transforming Health and Care Systems[12], on Personalised Medicine[13] and on Rare Diseases[14], as well as with actions supported under the Technical Support Instrument and the Cohesion Policy Funds.

[1] https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/strategy/support-policy-making/shaping-eu-research-and-innovation-policy/new-european-innovation-agenda/innovation-procurement/horizon-europe-funding-pcp-and-ppi_en For PPI executed by a group of procurers, the lead procurer should coordinate the preparation and implementation of one joint or several coordinated public procurements of innovative solutions, based on common specifications defined jointly by the buyers’ group. Each PPI should focus on one concrete need identified as a common challenge that requires the deployment of innovative solutions. Projects that aim to implement a PPI should contain a preparation and execution stage.

[2] European Pillar of Social Rights: https://employment-social-affairs.ec.europa.eu/european-pillar-social-rights-20-principles_en

[3] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32003H0361

[4] https://integratedcarefoundation.org/nine-pillars-of-integrated-care See also diagram: https://cordis.europa.eu/docs/results/h2020/634/634288_PS/001-eur-selfie2020-infographic-implementation.png and relevant corresponding article: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953621000605?via%3Dihub

[5] https://health.ec.europa.eu/medicinal-products/personalised-medicine_en

[6] For digital technologies concerned, appropriate measures for the security of the communications between the intended parties should be considered, in particular based on the use of post-quantum cryptography.

[7] https://health.ec.europa.eu/ehealth-digital-health-and-care/european-health-data-space-regulation-ehds_en

[8] The catalogue of European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) research infrastructures portfolio can be browsed on the ESFRI website: https://ri-portfolio.esfri.eu

[9] https://www.jadecare.eu

[10] https://www.xt-ehr.eu

[11] https://myhealthmyhands.eu

[12] https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101095654, https://www.thcspartnership.eu

[13] https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101137129, https://www.eppermed.eu

[14] https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101156595, https://erdera.org