Innovation Center at the Hospital
Breaking down the silos between companies and hospitals!
To enhance the quality, safety, and organization of healthcare, an Innovation Center leverages start-up technology to address hospital needs. The teams create synergies to address patients’ and/or healthcare professionals’ issues, driving the hospital forward.
Why set up an Innovation Center?
An Innovation Center is, first and foremost, the application of a methodology for implementing an innovation strategy in a healthcare organisation. Step by step, this strategy involves working on two main aspects:
- Structuring an innovation process by mobilising the members of the healthcare organisation (bringing together people from different backgrounds, identifying needs, assessing their feasibility, etc.)
- Developing an internal culture geared towards innovation (in other words, creating fertile ground)
Startups and young companies
Because your solution could improve the healthcare of tomorrow
- Create tailor-made healthcare solutions in response to identified needs, serving end-users
- Connect with the right person in a healthcare institution
- Test your solution in the field, under real conditions
Healthcare institutions
Because a hospital’s success is driven by the quality of its care and the dedication of its staff
- Foster a culture of innovation by engaging teams in a shared vision
- Implement customized solutions to benefit staff
- Enhance the daily experience of patients and their families
Case study: a hospital-startup collaboration
Who?
What?
- The observation that ‘there are too many wires on my patient’ highlights the interference with care and the risk of disconnection due to the patient’s movements.
- A real-life test on 16 patients: on average, 5 days of post-operative monitoring (test carried out over 11 weeks)
- A co-creation between a dedicated (and trained) medical team and a specialist start-up to develop a tailor-made solution
Outcomes of this collaboration
- Caregivers, particularly physiotherapists, can mobilise patients quickly and easily without having to disconnect and reconnect monitors.
- The absence of wiring makes nursing care easier. This saves time and improves management of the service
- Doctors can monitor patients’ vital signs remotely, giving them greater responsiveness and more accurate monitoring of post-operative developments, particularly in the event of complications.
- In oesophageal surgery, where patients are not usually monitored, the MultiSense® solution provides additional security for complicated surgery with proven risks of complications.
I'm going for it
An Innovation Center is a facility designed to strengthen the links between hospital structures and companies offering practical solutions. From new technologies for surgeons to external support for patients, the need for innovation is vast!
Brussels University Hospital is the first hospital in the Brussels region to set up an Innovation Center: take advantage of its experience and be inspired by examples and testimonials from all over Europe. It’s a rich source of inspiration for developing successful collaborative projects between hospitals and businesses!
Startups and young companies
Collaborate with hospitals to develop your healthcare innovations in real-life conditions.
Where should you start?
- Consult best practices and feedback from other companies and startups
- Contact lifetech.brussels, your development partner in the Brussels region and the intermediary between you and healthcare organisations
Healthcare institutions
Implement a structured approach to developing an innovation strategy.
Where should you start?
- Set up a multidisciplinary, motivated team within your hospital
- Consult best practices and feedback from other hospitals, starting with the H.U.B.!
- Reach out to lifetech.brussels for advice on organising and setting up a workgroup
- Download and read the manual below
Feedback: the practical guide to implementing an innovation strategy
The Innovation Center set up by lifetech.brussels and the resulting pilot project have provided valuables opportunities for testing and learning. How can you implement a sustainable innovation strategy in a hospital? How do you engage your colleagues in a process of acculturation? How do you coordinate initiatives and involve people from different backgrounds in a shared process?
This guide is the result of practical experience and includes a compendium of best practice, case studies and pitfalls to avoid, developed by those who have experienced it first-hand. It serves as an essential source for innovation managers and anyone interested in this field, to be read and reread.
To find out more...
Innovations to watch
Other hospitals have realised the importance of innovating in their practices! Here is a series of videos filmed across Europe, feauring individuals who have embraced new principles or new ways of doing things within their care structures.
From France, Switzerland, Spain and Belgium, they share their experiences, the challenges they encountered and how they overcame them.
Liste de lecture
Your contact person at lifetech.brussels
Because we’re here to support you in your innovation projects!
We are the ideal intermediary between innovative companies and healthcare players to test and adopt solutions with high innovation potential.
As the project coordinator for lifetech.brussels, Sophie Liénart helped set up the Innovation Center at the H.U.B.
Sophie Liénart
The Innovation Center is aimed at the management of health and care institutions seeking to collaborate with innovative start-ups, as well as for start-ups developing healthcare solutions. Its goal is to facilitate meetings, exchanges and successful collaborations between these key players in the future of healthcare.
The Innovation Center and its pilot project are initiatives of lifetech.brussels, made possible by ERDF funding and the involvement of partners Antares, Hict and the H.U.B.
