Public Procurement of Innovation (PPI) is a crucial challenge for public bodies. The “usual” way of purchasing goods is still based on the price of the product. Life cycle costing, supply chain analysis or group purchases are rarely used, which means opportunities to get innovative products that would give purchasers competitive advantage are missed. There is a need to start developing networks of procurers to enable procurers to identify common needs, conduct market analysis, understand the supply chain, use these tools to comprise a higher procurement volume, and have a bigger impact on suppliers. This can be obtained through PPI.
EPP-eHealth targeted to understand health care public procurers unmet needs in the eHealth domain. For that, a network of health care procurement organizations was created. This network allowed the consortium to identify common unmet needs, explore the best available solutions and stimulate the market . In addition, it created a PPI/PCP procurement strategy for the eHealth sector. To achieve these targets, the following work programme was implemented:
WP1. PROJECT COORDINATION related to the project coordination and management activities.
WP2. PPI CAPACITY/ NETWORK BUILDING related to internal capacity building in order to engage in two-way communication with stakeholders (buyers and suppliers). This was achieved through the implementation of the following activities:
Training and coaching on PPI through the 4 stakeholders workshops organised during the course of the project
Regular web-based dissemination though 8 dedicated newsletters
2 Community of Learning Visits as opportunities for collective learning on best practice case studies.
WP3. IDENTIFY UNMET NEEDS aimed to develop a credible, evidence-based, communication document on unmet needs to innovative companies and others that could offer innovative eHealth solutions.
WP4. MARKET SOUNDING highlighted the scale of the technology exploitation gap and allowed eHealth stakeholders to respond to the communication on unmet needs.
The action resulted in the following main project outcomes:
- Network of healthcare procurers that remains active after the project closure through the sustainability of the project online platform. This allows future collaboration and mobilization for eHealth procurement projects addressing the health care sector unmet needs
- Joint Statement of eHealth unmet needs. The EPP-eHealth network of healthcare procurers identified and validated common areas of unmet needs. The resulting document (Deliverable D3.4) can be downloaded from the project website. These are credible needs that stimulate the supply chain by giving confidence that the demand exist; thus contributing to mobilize the investment in innovation. This approach brings opportunities for the market, in particular for SMEs, which represent a large percentage of ICT solution providers.
- PPI / PCP Strategy for eHealth. The consortium developed a strategy to address the barriers to more rapid development and uptake of eHealth through demand-side actions such as PPI and PCP projects. This constitutes the Deliverable D4.4 and the final project output. The document summarizes the lessons learned from the project and identifies the demand-side measures that are needed to enable the healthcare sector to accelerate the development and adoption of ‘market-ready’ eHealth solutions through Innovation Procurement, and thus help to address the major challenges that are facing the healthcare sector in Europe.
