As a member of the Procure4Health Community, Servicio Andaluz de Salud shares with us the road they have followed to consolidate their position as one of the largest procurers of innovation in Spain.

Servicio Andaluz de Salud (SAS) is the public agency responsible for the provision of healthcare to the population of Andalusia, one of the largest regions in Europe with 8.4 million inhabitants. Its main purpose is to provide high-quality public healthcare to the citizens of the region, ensuring its accessibility and the satisfaction of its users, and seeking efficiency and optimum use of resources. Healthcare services are provided by SAS through a network of integrated healthcare facilities: 1,512 primary care centers, 49 hospitals, 16 Health Management areas, and more than 120,000 employees distributed throughout Andalusia.

SAS managed a total annual budget in 2022 that exceeded 12,600 million euros, of which 29,41% (more than 3,700 million euros) was goods and services (public purchase). It is carried out through a network composed of 8 provincial purchasing centers (one more for 061 emergency service is in the process) coordinated by the Deputy Director of procurement and logistics at SAS. All of this means that SAS has an extensive experience in public procurement.

Fundación Progreso y Salud (FPS) is a non-profit public foundation belonging to the Andalusian Ministry of Health and it is the backbone for biomedical research in Andalusia.  To ensure full coverage of R&I services along the region, FPS coordinates local research managing foundations though a collaborative network so-called Research Managing Foundations Network of the Andalusian Public Health System.

FPS counts on its own Public Procurement Innovation Office acting as a central entity for support and coordination of the PPI Health Program of the Andalusian Ministry of Health. FPS offers a broad portfolio of services to the Servicio Andaluz de Salud for: promotional activities, a meeting point to identify care needs that are currently not covered, facilitating the creation of synergies within of the market, support in management of PCP and PPI projects as well as support in processes such as impact assessment and justification of funds.

Do you want to get to know more about the expertise of our procurer Servicio Andaluz de Salud & Fundación Progreso y Salud on Innovation Procurement projects?

Keep reading!

Organisations name: Servicio Andaluz de Salud & Fundación Progreso y Salud

Name and Surname of the person answering these questions: Sandra Leal González

Job position in the organisation of the person answering these questions: Head of PPI projects in the Andalusian Health Service (Servicio Andaluz de Salud).

1. What is the experience of your organisation, working on the procurement of innovation?

Servicio Andaluz de Salud is developing 5 Public Procurement of Innovative solutions (PPI) projects and it is collaborating in another two promoted by the Ministry of Health several of them with the support of Fundación Progreso y Salud. These projects are being supported through different calls, funded, or co-funded by the EU. The global budget of these projects is over 20 million euros.  The projects are aimed at finding solutions to challenges of great importance for the public health system and for citizens, such as Precision Medicine in infectious diseases and cancer; Digital Pathology; emergency healthcare, etc.

Fundación Progreso y Salud through its Public Procurement Innovation Office is responsible for facilitating the use of the Public Procurement of Innovation as a regular contracting tool by the procurers that make up the Servicio Andaluz de Salud, stimulating the investment of private sector agents, establishing a new way of attracting of wealth to the region that places Andalusia as a European benchmark in Public Procurement of Innovation, allowing this the creation of highly qualified employment and favors the improvement of the quality of healthcare, such as the efficiency and sustainability of the health system.

2. Based on your experience, what are the benefits of procuring innovation in the healthcare sector?

Public procurement of innovation in the health sector has multiple benefits according to our experience. These include, above all, the achievement of better services for citizens, as well as representing progress in the development of products or services that do not exist on the market and whose implementation, in the future, will add value to healthcare for citizens and the sustainability of the healthcare system. All of this promotes a culture of innovation within public entities, strengthens public-private collaboration and improves the competitiveness of companies, generating benefits for all stakeholders.

3. Not everything must have been a bed of roses, what challenges have you faced when procuring innovation?

Procuring innovations is buying that that is not yet available in the market or that it does not even exits, therefore is a complex process that needs to coordinate all the chain of command and end users in order to have a real impact. Therefore, there are many challenges along the way, being some of the key milestones and challenges: The process of identifying needs and launching initiatives in an entity as large as the SAS; the complexity of coordinating the different units and agents in an IPP process; the specialisation of the technical offices; the gap between the prototype and the final implementation and deployment of the solutions.

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.)

The Centro de Emergencias Sanitarias 061 (SAS) is implementing a Pre-commercial Public Procurement project.

The EQUILIN project aims at designing an integrated connected device, that transmits to and receives data and health records from Emergency Coordination Centres while preserving clinical safety for patients and EMS professionals. It must be lightweight and capable of measuring the main 5 vital signs (body temperature, heart rate, respiratory rate, blood oxygen saturation, and blood pressure) without contact with the patient from a distance of up to 2 meters away from the patient.

The project has a total budget of 1.000.000 €, 80% of which is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the Pluri-regional Operational Program of Spain (POPE) 2014-2020. This aid is granted by the Ministry of Science and Innovation through the FID program “Promotion of Innovation from Demand” with 800,000 €.

The project ends on 30 June 2023.  The last phase of the PCP contract is now being implemented.

• What was the role of your organisation in this project?

My organization has played a major role in the development of the project. We identified the need for our professionals to be able to wear a piece of low-weight equipment that does not need to be in contact with the patient.

• What unmet needs were addressed?

As I mentioned in the previous point, our professionals use very heavy equipment in their daily routine tasks, which leads to high work absenteeism.

We wanted to improve the process of out-of-hospital care for individual and collective emergencies by using lightweight equipment that allows rapid diagnosis and initiation of treatment, preserving clinical safety for patients and professionals.

• How was the experience co-creating with innovative suppliers?

It has been a great experience to have the opportunity to work on innovation developments.

We are very satisfied with the increased safety that this development brings to citizens and emergency medical service professionals.

• What were the main lesson learnt, regarding the procurement of innovation, obtained from this project?

The main lesson learned is that this kind of project is able to promote technologies that were underdeveloped, such as the capacity to measure oxygen saturation in blood without contact with the patient.

5. As an organisation very knowledgeable in innovation procurement, what piece of advice would you give to other healthcare organisations less experienced?

We recommend carrying out more Public Procurement of Innovation projects. They are complex and ambitious but very interesting and rewarding.

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Innovation procurement projects implemented by Servicio Andaluz de Salud

Servicio Andaluz de Salud and Fundación Progreso y Salud have been involved in the following projects:

• DyTP – Precision Diagnosis and Treatment of infectious diseases and cancer (2018-2022) Total budget: 6,040,784.00 euros, 80% co-financed by the 2014-2020 Multiregional ERDF Operational Program of Spain, through the FID Program for the Promotion of Demand of the Ministry of Science and Innovation.
  • Procurer: SAS / Supporter: Fundación Progreso y Salud

• PADIGA – Regional Digital Pathology Service (2018-2022) 4,000,000 euros. co-financed through the Andalusian FEDER Operational Program 2021-2027, through program 5.1 of the PPI Strategy of the Andalusian Government, promoted by the Ministry of Economic Transformation, Industry, Knowledge and Universities.
  • Procurer: SAS / Supporter: Fundación Progreso y Salud

• EQUILIN – Light intervention teams for health emergencies (2020-2023) Total budget of 1,000,000 euros, 80% co-financed by the 2014-2020 Pluriregional ERDF Operational Program of Spain, through the FID Program for the Promotion of Demand of the Ministry of Science and Innovation. BOE No. 338 of December 28, 2020.
  • Procurer: SAS / Supporter: Fundación Progreso y Salud

• iProcureSecurity PCP – Pre-commercial purchase of innovative triage management systems that increase the resilience and interoperability of medical emergencies (2020-2023) Total budget of 11,200,000 euros (PCP: 6,700,000 euros) through the HORIZON 2020 program (SU-GM02-2020). 12 partners (9 public buyers).
  • Procurer: SAS

• CART_ANDALUCIA – Preclinical and clinical development, up to and including Phase 1, of a new Advanced Therapy Medicinal Product (ATMP). (2020-2026) Total budget of 4,280,000.00 euros, co-financed through the ERDF Andalusia 2021-2027 Operational Program, through program 5.1 of the PPI Strategy of the Andalusian Government.
  • Procurer: Fundación Progreso y Salud / Supporter: SAS

• PIBICRA – Platform of artificial intelligence solutions based on big data for cancer screening in Andalusia (2020-2026) Total budget of 3,700,000.00 euros, co-financed through the ERDF Andalusia 2021-2027 Operational Program, through program 5.1 of the PPI Strategy of the Andalusian Government.
  • Procurer: Fundación Progreso y Salud / Supporter: SAS