At the CLUSTERIX 2.0 meeting in Odense, Denmark Oct 9th to 11th, 2018 the participants got to know the PPI initiative at Health Innovation Centre Southern Denmark. This Public Private Innovation Pool bridges funding impasses for SMEs through the valley of death between early stage prototypes and market-ready products. On the healthcare and medical market innovation, especially when it comes to telehealth solutions like the Open Telehealth, sparsely populated regions like Lower Austria could benefit a lot. They require combined effort of (local) government, public healthcare sector, applied science and private initiatives to benefit patients. Denmark is a leading country in e-health and demonstrates its efforts with a high-quality white paper on the national strategy integrating clinics, PHC, GPs patients and relatives.
The WHINN conference at Odense Congress Centre with over 1000 visitors showed successfully how the region of South Denmark could implement such a PPP forum of innovation and med-tech exchange also with an international outreach. Wide topics were ranging from leadership and logistics in the hospitals of the future to patient home monitoring solutions and innovative sensors.
The final visit to University of South Denmark sparked bilateral ideas of collaboration that will be intensified in the next month with a possible visit of one representative to the University of St. Pölten.