Introducing participants of the Latvian healthcare innovation pilot program Open Health Labs

Seven European startups have been selected to co-create innovative and patient-centric solutions with four Latvian medical institutions under the country's first public healthcare innovation pilot program "Open Health Labs". The program is part of a broader innovation promotion strategy meant to facilitate open innovations in the public health sector. It was launched earlier this summer by "Helve" in cooperation with the National Health Service of the Republic of Latvia.

The new program attracted noteworthy interest from startups all over the world. After a thorough evaluation, the best seven were selected to be a part of the program.

Within the program, Pauls Stradins Clinical University Hospital has been paired with U.K.-based startup BuzzStreets to develop a visitor and employee-friendly navigation system. The same institution has also put forward another challenge that they are tackling together with Portuguese startup Bloq.it. They are now working on a convenient system for depositing, storing and retrieving patients’ personal belongings during their hospital stay.

Riga Psychiatric and Narcology Centre is currently developing a digital platform for online inpatient consultations with Latvian startup Medon. While Jelgava City Hospital has been paired with Dutch startup Inicare to create a tool for continuous monitoring of the health conditions of inpatients. However, on a digital tool for monitoring patients’ movements and location, they are working with Israel-based startup IntraPosition.

Meanwhile, Daugavpils Regional Hospital is working with U.K. startup Resilio and Luxembourg-based startup Dynaccurate to create a digital platform for automated recording, supervision, and analysis of prescribed and applied therapy and monitoring of the condition of the patients undergoing oncology treatment.

The innovation pilot program "Open Health Labs" was launched by the National Health Service of the Republic of Latvia in cooperation with the innovation management company "Helve". The unique program is meant to promote innovations in Latvian public health sector and involves four state and regional-level medical institutions. The program's DEMO day is scheduled for December 7, 2022, giving the participants an intensive sixteen-week work period before presenting their innovative solutions to experienced open innovation and medical technology experts.