As a member of the Procure4Health Community, Region Hovedstaden (The Capital Region of Denmark) shares with us the road they are following to consolidate their position as a reference in Procurement of Innovation in their Region.
Denmark comprises five regions that are responsible for solving health, environmental, business and social issues. As the largest region, the Capital Region of Denmark has high ambitions, whether it’s a question of growth and employment in innovative companies or quality of life in the form of a green environment and a world-class health system. The region covers 10 hospitals and employs 40.000 people.
Region Hovedstaden is a public single-payer provider of health care for 1.8 mio inhabitants in Denmark. They are located in the capital region of Denmark. They have 41 bn Kroner budget, 2.1 bn Kroner spent on research annually and 14 bn Kroner spent on procurement.
Do you want to get to know more about the expertise of our public procurer Region Hovedstaden on Innovation Procurement projects?
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Organisations name: Region Hovedstaden
Name and Surname of the person answering these questions: Louise Brink Thomsen
Job position in the organisation of the person answering these questions: Senior Consultant, Value Based and Innovation Procurement
1. What is the experience of your organisation, working on the procurement of innovation?
The region struggles with wasted resources on development efforts in innovation initiatives that never lead to implementation in scale. The dominant contractual framework is Pre-commercial Procurement (PCP). Ten years ago, the EU public procurement directive was changed due to the same challenges that we struggle with today. The directive proposes a new contractual framework allowing public authorities to enter into innovation contracts, regulating both the development, implementation and operation phase of innovation collaborations. During the past year the Region has made preparation to implement a practice of tendering innovation contracts and launched preparations for the organization’s first tender following the innovation partnership procedure. Our experience is that this takes high mandate in the organization because it both challenges the research culture, current mindset on innovation collaboration as well as organizational silos.
2. Based on your experience, what are the benefits of procuring innovation in the healthcare sector?
Our experience this far is that we are able to gather the complete marked sharing a common need allowing for scale from the onset of the initiatives. We are also able to engage all relevant decision makers for both developing and implementing a solution from the onset creating a solid ground for succeeding in carrying through the innovation initiative and doing it on a solid basis for decisions.
3. Not everything must have been a bed of roses, what challenges have you faced when procuring innovation?
Our challenges primarily concern the fact that the practice is new to the organization. The form of the tender criteria focusing on needs and performance rather than product features is new to the organization and must be learned. The same goes for business case and financing methods and market dialogue approaches to name a few extra topics.
4. Could you please highlight a successful case on Innovation Procurement your organisation was involved in? (Please, specify if this project was a Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) or a Public Procurement of Innovative solutions (PPI). In this answer you should include a brief description of the project which includes its main goal, duration, budget, funding entity, etc.)
It remains to be seen how successful we will be in the organization’s first innovation partnership tender procedure. The main goal of the project is to provide overview in a ward. The tender will be launched this year with a partnership duration of six years in which period the solution is developed, implemented and operated. The budget is DKK30 mio. from the construction budget of the hospitals.
- What is the role of your organisation in this project?
Public procurer and provider.
- What unmet needs will be addressed?
Lack of overview in a ward, false alarms, insufficient alarms, late response to intervention demanding incidents, too much disturbance of patients and too busy ward staff.
5. As an organisation knowledgeable in innovation procurement, what piece of advice would you give to other healthcare organisations less experienced?
I recommend starting using the procedures of the public procurement directive as of 2014 that allows for contracting innovation agreements covering the whole innovation process as well as operating phase.
Innovation procurement projects implemented by Region Hovedstaden
Region Hovedstaden has been involved in the following project:
- SMART surveillance
