eHealth Future, the largest digital health programme in Spain

The largest digital health programme in Spain is taking its first steps to address the healthcare of the future. This is eHealth Future, an initiative created by the INNSOMNIA innovation hub, with the aim of generating an open innovation space for the healthcare sector that is unique in our country. An ambitious project whose background is the connection between an ecosystem of more than 700 international startups, brought together by the accelerator, with the public health system and private entities focused on providing health and social services.

The formula used to make this digital step forward a reality in the healthcare field will be the one already successfully tested by INNSOMNIA in the fintech, insurtech and industry 4.0 sectors, connecting the startups' ideas with the needs of large companies and public administrations, as well as with the European Union's funding lines. 

eHealth Future will thus support all major players in the healthcare industry to connect with national and international startups and scale-ups through its international network The Talent Route.
In this way, eHealth Future will promote collaboration designed to integrate the innovation and dynamism of small technology companies into public and private entities, improving their services to citizens. This need for digital transformation takes on new prominence following the unprecedented impact of Covid-19, to which the EU has responded by increasing funding for these projects, providing more than €13.4 billion to programmes such as Horizon Europe, EU4Health and EIT Health, which join the new Next Generation EU.

"With eHealth Future, we want to create bridges to promote joint work between startups and hospitals, laboratories and research centres, insurers and pharmaceutical companies, so that advances in medicine and patient care can be tested in real conditions and oriented to the real needs of the health system. We want to encourage co-created projects aligned with the funding lines opened by Europe to improve the health of its citizens", explains Francisco Estevan, CEO of INNSOMNIA, who continues: "we seek to redefine the Spanish health ecosystem through three axes: optimising processes, further democratising global access to health services and promoting a collaborative framework that integrates all sectors, areas and agents that contribute to the positive impact of the health system".

Thus, this programme will comprehensively address the digital transformation of the sector with a roadmap defined for the period 2021-2027, through different milestones and work strategies. The creation of open innovation spaces in eHealth Future will be joined by specific training and acceleration processes for startups, where the company already has experience with several success stories in recent years. In this sense, eHealth Future will also have reskilling training programmes with university degrees to adapt professionals to the new profiles and technological needs that will promote open innovation processes and intrapreneurship in the field of healthcare.

The social and healthcare sector at the forefront of digitalisation
INNSOMNIA's growing involvement in the acceleration of healthcare projects has been the starting point for this new leap, which already has some important precedents. Examples of this innovative model include projects such as the one launched by the insurance company Santalucía and EverHealth, designed to implement a telemedicine service that was launched in the midst of the Covid-19 health crisis; the collaboration between the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline and Nodalblock, with the aim of automating processes in the company's plant using blockchain; or the recent alliance between Generali Seguros and Fisify, which has led to the creation of a virtual assistant capable of helping patients throughout their recovery process. 

"Since 2016, we have launched more than 20 acceleration programmes and promoted more than a hundred projects, in which patient care has become increasingly relevant. The calls to find startups that offer new tools in the field of health to large companies have allowed us to establish a deep knowledge of emerging companies and technological SMEs whose technology has direct application in the field of healthcare or hospital management", Estevan points out.

eHealth Summit, a one-stop opportunity to attract EU funds
The first milestone in the eHealth Future itinerary will focus on facilitating access to European funds for the different actors in the health sector, from hospitals and pharmaceutical companies to technology SMEs and insurance companies. This initiative will become the dedicated Health fundraising event, offering the whole industry a comprehensive understanding of the funding streams through the different Next Generation EU mechanisms, as well as connecting them with some of the top European project leaders in the Health sector in Europe.

The eHealth Summit will kick off on 19 May, in a two-day event organised together with Local Europe, a leading company in the search and design of European projects, as well as in the management of programmes and consortiums.