Public procurement of innovative eHealth services

Specific challenge: The sustainability of pilot and demonstration solutions and services is broadly perceived as one of the biggest challenges in streamlining healthcare delivery processes and in improving cost efficiency while maintaining or improving patient safety. The pace of development has been slow and penetration of ICT still has high growth potential in healthcare compared to other public or private sectors.

This activity facilitates public purchasing of innovative solutions in healthcare which have not yet been deployed on a large scale.

Scope: The proposals should improve sustainable deployment of new or improved services by healthcare service procurers in line with the eHealth Action Plan[1]. Examples of target outcomes for healthcare delivery may include addressing early hospital discharge, delivery of healthcare in remote, sparsely populated and difficult to access regions, eHealth services for mobile EU patients, and pre/post operation care outside the hospital environment.

The scope of the PPI pilot(s) is to specify, purchase and deploy ICT based solutions which can deliver sustainable, new or improved healthcare services and improve the ecosystem in which procurement approaches for innovative healthcare solutions are successfully applied.

Proposals should be driven by clearly identified procurement needs of healthcare organisations and provide for appropriate public engagement:

• Solutions should be based on a complete set of common specifications for technology and end to end services;
• The implementation phase should have the ambition to reach a large scale across multiple regions of Europe;
• Proposals must engage public and/or private procurers from each country participating (at national, regional or local level) that have responsibilities and budget control in the relevant area of care or supply of services;
• Wherever possible the work should build on and contribute to relevant standards to ensure interoperability and take into account best practices and relevant standardisation efforts as well as provide appropriate safeguards against relevant ethical and privacy issues;
• The work shall include a non-confidential, comprehensive socio-economic evidence base for ICT investments in the field (including e.g. cost-benefit analysis, assessment of impacts, return on investments, medical evidence, patient safety gain and user satisfaction) to facilitate the development of sustainable business models and;
• Good practice shall be made available for replication in other regions, for example detailed plans for larger-scale sustainable uptake as well as reference material including guidelines, manuals and educational materials.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of between EUR 1 and 5 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

Expected impact:

• As applicable, contribution to regulatory and legal process development addressing possible barriers to procurement of innovative solutions in healthcare.
• Growing awareness and successful use of public procurement by the procurers to boost innovation in the application of ICT in the sector concerned.
• Support to interoperability and defragmentation of the market.
• Sustainable implementation of services and creation of economic conditions that support long-term development.
• More forward-looking, concerted, public sector approach to eHealth.
• Reduced fragmentation of public sector demand across a number of EU Member - or Associated States by enabling public purchasers to collectively implement PPI strategies, which due to their nature are better addressed jointly, or which they would not have been able to tackle independently.
• Increased opportunities for wide market uptake and economies of scale for the supply side for ICT based solutions and services by forming critical mass on the public demand side.

Type of action: Public procurement of innovative solutions co-fund actions.

[1] ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/news/ehealth-action-plan-2012-2020-innovative-healthcare-21st-century