Data economy tools in health sector ecosystems

Health sector ecosystems play a key role in boosting growth. The goal of Sitra’s projects is to gather experiences of the use of data in health sector ecosystems and strengthen the competitiveness of the health sector using fair data economy measures.

What is it about?

Health sector ecosystems or co-operation networks have an important role and significance in society. They generate knowledge, skills and solutions that can be used to positively affect the health and well-being of the population. Improved health and well-being leads to better working capacity and functional capacity and has a positive impact on the economy.

Ecosystems play a key role in boosting the growth of the Finnish health sector. The health sector faces increasing pressure to reform as a result of the digitalisation of the operating environment. As data becomes a key success factor for ecosystem operations, the importance of sharing it also becomes more pronounced.

Sitra aims to promote the competitiveness of ecosystems of the Finnish health sector through the fair data economy. A fair data economy generates value for all – people, businesses and society.

The projects are used for gathering experiences on the use of data in ecosystems and the use fair data economy tools, such as Sitra’s Rulebook for a Fair Data Economy, and the use of ecosystems to speed up the work and promote value creation.

Projects in progress

The projects, which were selected on the basis of a call for funding, are due to end by the end of May 2023.

The development of services requires the use of data. The project concerns data created in the home care of older people. It will model the movement of the data between different parties and a care-related data network in North Ostrobothnia. The project also aims to remove barriers to the movement and use of data collected from multiple sources. The project will assess the applicability of Sitra’s Fair Data Economy Rulebook to healthcare and aim to increase knowledge about data use.

Implementors and contact person:
BusinessOulu, Jenni Konttila, jenni.konttila (at) businessoulu.com
VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland
University of Oulu
Wointi Oy

Data collaboration between European children’s hospitals

The General Data Protection Regulation and privacy requirements have made sharing health data complex and time-consuming for hospitals, severely limiting access to health data. Six European children’s hospitals aim to form a health data ecosystem to promote the use of data in developing child healthcare, research and knowledge asset management. The project will apply Sitra’s Rule-book and create a permanent collaboration and administrative model. The goal is to facilitate ac-cess to health data, offer tools for analysing aggregated health data and create data sharing ser-vices.

Implementors and contact person:
Helsinki University Hospital (HUS), Pekka Kahri pekka.kahri (at) hus.fi
Sant Joan de Déu – Barcelona Children’s Hospital (SJD), Spain
GOSH – Great Ormond Street Hospital (NHS), United Kingdom
Erasmus Universitair Medisch Centrum Rotterdam, Netherlands
Meyer Azienda Ospedaliero Universitaria, Italy
Children’s Clinical University Hospital of Latvia (BKUS)

Data-based prevention of memory disorders

As populations age, the burden of care for memory disorders grows. In addition to innovations in care, managing this burden requires the successful promotion of memory health to reduce the number of people affected by such disorders or for their onset to be considerably delayed. The aim of the project is to form a collective of organisations involved in memory health in line with Sitra’s principles of a fair data economy. The collective will prepare an impact study pilot to be carried in North Savo related to the prevention of memory disorders.

Implementors and contact person:
Kuopio Health, Kimmo Solehmainen, kimmo.solehmainen (at) kuopiohealth.fi
University of Eastern Finland
North Savo wellbeing services county
Gesund Partners
Wellpro Impact Solutions Oy
ESiOR Oy

Medication safety innovation ecosystem

The project involves forming an innovation ecosystem that produces solutions based on the use of health data to improve medication safety. The project will identify data repositories that can be combined and analysed to provide information on the realisation of medication safety. The project also aims to solve issues related to medication safety and build a basis for the development of innovations that make use of data. The project will make the expertise of medication safety spe-cialists available to various sectors and enable broad collaboration.

Implementors and contact person:
Pharmaca Health Intelligence (Pharmaceutical Information Centre), Essi Kariaho essi.kariaho (at) laaketietokeskus.fi
VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland
Aalto University
Centre for Client and Patient Safety of the Ostrobothnian wellbeing services county