Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Invest4Health (Mobilising novel finance models for health promotion and disease prevention)
Reporting period: 2023-01-01 to 2024-06-30
MOBILISING FINANCE MODELS FOR HEALTH PROMOTION AND DISEASE PREVENTION
Making Health an Investment
Invest4Health (I4H) is a Horizon Europe project focused on transforming health financing for better health and well-being. Invest4Health aims to enhance health promotion and disease prevention by incentivizing investments in these critical areas. The project seeks to unlock the full potential of health promotion and disease prevention by mobilizing novel finance models that benefit individuals, societies, economies, and the environment. I4H challenges the status quo in healthcare and explores a fresh financing perspective, viewing health as an investment rather than a cost. I4h is dedicated to building a compelling case for investment and shaping policies that optimize health promotion and disease prevention resources.
Who Benefits: Driving Positive Change
Through validated Smart Capacitating Investment (SCI) models, I4H aims to enable decision-makers to pool resources and share risks, shifting the focus from input-based budgeting to outcome-driven analysis to unlock the full potential of health promotion and disease prevention.
Our Actions: Putting Smart Capacitating Investment into Practice
I4H develops an SCI definition and a taxonomy to see various opportunities and formats for SCI. We create innovative finance methods, develop suitable business models, and test them in real-world settings through testbeds. For sustainability and scaling, I4H collaborates with local stakeholders to explore how to scale SCI to deliver equitable health promotion and disease prevention services. The intention is to do this under a familiar social franchise brand to replicate successful interventions including how they were implemented and governed, maintain consistent standards, and maximize social benefits. We promote an approach that encourages funders to proactively engage and invest in services and interventions that are not just effective but also cost-effective.
Who Benefits: Regional Testbeds
We bring scientific, social, economic, and technological partners together, all represented in our partnerships. Economically, the SCI models are projected to generate substantial return on investment, increase spending on health promotion and disease prevention, and secure financial commitments from key actors at regional level.
Making Health an Investment
Invest4Health (I4H) is a Horizon Europe project focused on transforming health financing for better health and well-being. Invest4Health aims to enhance health promotion and disease prevention by incentivizing investments in these critical areas. The project seeks to unlock the full potential of health promotion and disease prevention by mobilizing novel finance models that benefit individuals, societies, economies, and the environment. I4H challenges the status quo in healthcare and explores a fresh financing perspective, viewing health as an investment rather than a cost. I4h is dedicated to building a compelling case for investment and shaping policies that optimize health promotion and disease prevention resources.
Who Benefits: Driving Positive Change
Through validated Smart Capacitating Investment (SCI) models, I4H aims to enable decision-makers to pool resources and share risks, shifting the focus from input-based budgeting to outcome-driven analysis to unlock the full potential of health promotion and disease prevention.
Our Actions: Putting Smart Capacitating Investment into Practice
I4H develops an SCI definition and a taxonomy to see various opportunities and formats for SCI. We create innovative finance methods, develop suitable business models, and test them in real-world settings through testbeds. For sustainability and scaling, I4H collaborates with local stakeholders to explore how to scale SCI to deliver equitable health promotion and disease prevention services. The intention is to do this under a familiar social franchise brand to replicate successful interventions including how they were implemented and governed, maintain consistent standards, and maximize social benefits. We promote an approach that encourages funders to proactively engage and invest in services and interventions that are not just effective but also cost-effective.
Who Benefits: Regional Testbeds
We bring scientific, social, economic, and technological partners together, all represented in our partnerships. Economically, the SCI models are projected to generate substantial return on investment, increase spending on health promotion and disease prevention, and secure financial commitments from key actors at regional level.
When the project started in January 2-23, the consortium was driven by a common vision: to incentivise a shift from hospital-centric care to smart capacitating investment in health promotion and disease prevention at scale across multiple levels with sustainable returns and localised benefits.
The first 18 months saw immense effort to get people and processes in place (i) to gather knowledge and strengthen a working concept of smart capacitating investment (ii), to decide how to apply that insight to SCI in combination with related tools and methodologies (iii), to achieve readiness for the initial testbeds to pilot selected SCI compliant models and tools to a chosen health promotion or disease prevention intervention (iv), to integrate and utilise local data to inform participatory governance with citizens through local collaboration spaces (v), and to get consortium members and stakeholders involved to buy-in to the need for and remit of a funded Citizen and Patient Advisory Group, which has developed to common practice in most other EU projects with similar needs and objectives.
Progress but also friction
This first period has been characterized by an iterative process with some issues having to be revisited more than once. In short, several knowledge threads emerged and needed collective sense-making to tie-up or continue to follow. Corresponding needs have also emerged in relation to the testbeds, where collective sense-making has been managed in relation to the design and evaluation of each of the four testbeds. learning and insights are significant results from the Invest4Health project and should be valued as such. We can expect hat similar “friction” will appear when additional regions with an interest for the SCI-related results are invited and engaged in the dissemination efforts.
Preliminary results
I4H establishes a solid evidence base, tests effective investment techniques, and promotes equitable spending through citizen participation. I4H evaluates ideas in regional test beds, guided by healthcare decision-makers and citizen panels working together. Our innovative SCI models and tools will lead to cost-effective strategies, fair and participatory decision-making, and resilient communities.
The invest4Health project has during the first 18 months been rather research-heavy to understand how to relate a conceptual SCI framework to available state-of-the art. Recent Deliverables provide preliminary results and, in parallel, activities have been implemented to plan and to prepare for how the results can be interpreted and validated through the four regional testbeds. A significant part of the preparation has been to support the testbeds to assess and to develop their readiness to apply novel financial and business models, and to co-govern their respective intervention based on new collaborative principles. Our collaborative platform will involve local communities in a new governance mechanism to deliver more equitable health promotion and disease prevention business and finance models.
The first 18 months saw immense effort to get people and processes in place (i) to gather knowledge and strengthen a working concept of smart capacitating investment (ii), to decide how to apply that insight to SCI in combination with related tools and methodologies (iii), to achieve readiness for the initial testbeds to pilot selected SCI compliant models and tools to a chosen health promotion or disease prevention intervention (iv), to integrate and utilise local data to inform participatory governance with citizens through local collaboration spaces (v), and to get consortium members and stakeholders involved to buy-in to the need for and remit of a funded Citizen and Patient Advisory Group, which has developed to common practice in most other EU projects with similar needs and objectives.
Progress but also friction
This first period has been characterized by an iterative process with some issues having to be revisited more than once. In short, several knowledge threads emerged and needed collective sense-making to tie-up or continue to follow. Corresponding needs have also emerged in relation to the testbeds, where collective sense-making has been managed in relation to the design and evaluation of each of the four testbeds. learning and insights are significant results from the Invest4Health project and should be valued as such. We can expect hat similar “friction” will appear when additional regions with an interest for the SCI-related results are invited and engaged in the dissemination efforts.
Preliminary results
I4H establishes a solid evidence base, tests effective investment techniques, and promotes equitable spending through citizen participation. I4H evaluates ideas in regional test beds, guided by healthcare decision-makers and citizen panels working together. Our innovative SCI models and tools will lead to cost-effective strategies, fair and participatory decision-making, and resilient communities.
The invest4Health project has during the first 18 months been rather research-heavy to understand how to relate a conceptual SCI framework to available state-of-the art. Recent Deliverables provide preliminary results and, in parallel, activities have been implemented to plan and to prepare for how the results can be interpreted and validated through the four regional testbeds. A significant part of the preparation has been to support the testbeds to assess and to develop their readiness to apply novel financial and business models, and to co-govern their respective intervention based on new collaborative principles. Our collaborative platform will involve local communities in a new governance mechanism to deliver more equitable health promotion and disease prevention business and finance models.
At a global scale we currently face quite a few challenges, where climate change and health are two of the most critical. In discussions on how to effectively meet these challenges quite a hope is given to “collaborative multi-actor initiatives”, i.e. the same structural approach as is the base for SCI-based models and tools. However, the preliminary results from the Invest4Health project show that even if there should be a strong demand for experience, knowledge and state-of-the-art solutions, not many examples could be found in the literature.
We thus strongly believe that the Invest4Health project will provide significant contributions to the state-of-the-art through validated real-world cases based on SCI-compatible models and tools. As described above it is however just speculations, since we are not that far in the implementation of the project.
We also believe that the Social Franchising concept developed in the project will make a difference when looking for effective solutions to replicate and scale successful interventions for health promotion and disease prevention.
We thus strongly believe that the Invest4Health project will provide significant contributions to the state-of-the-art through validated real-world cases based on SCI-compatible models and tools. As described above it is however just speculations, since we are not that far in the implementation of the project.
We also believe that the Social Franchising concept developed in the project will make a difference when looking for effective solutions to replicate and scale successful interventions for health promotion and disease prevention.