FOR THE BEST PUBLIC PROCUREMENT INITIATIVE IN HEALTH INNOVATION
Madrid, 18 October 2021.- The Congress is a meeting point for public and private sector professionals and experts in Innovation and Public Procurement. This event created a space for discussing and sharing information on Public Procurement of Innovation processes, experiences, and current innovative projects.
The Second Edition of the Amparo Poch Awards took place during the Congress, in recognition of the efforts of public institutions committed to Public Procurement of Innovation. Candidates for the Awards were eligible for both categories: Best Public Procurement of Innovation in Health; and Best Initiative for the Promotion of Public Procurement of Innovation.
These awards are intended for innovative projects that are either completed or at an advanced stage of development and that represent a substantial improvement in supplies, services, processes, or investments in healthcare or for the healthcare model.
The first two days of the Congress opened with a round table discussion on the process of Innovative Public Procurement (IPP) and its different modalities. These sessions were complemented by a hands-on workshop that allowed attendees to immerse themselves in a Preliminary Market Consultation (PMC) process and learn first-hand about the opportunities and challenges of PPI.
Throughout the third day of the Congress, presentations tackled the keys to preparing bid specifications, the Innovation Partnership Procedure, and examples of CPI projects carried out in different parts of Spain.
This was followed by the presentation and award ceremony of the Second Edition of the Amparo Poch Awards, in which the Department of Health of the Community of Madrid was the winner in the category of Best Public Procurement of Innovation in Health with the project “Medigenomics, Infobanco and Integracam: Driving Innovation in Healthcare through PPI.”
The Medigenomics Project aims to design, build, and develop a centralised, comprehensive, and expert service that combines the whole process of studying an individual’s genome on a single platform, in a simple and automated way, and with continuous updating in real time, thus improving the diagnostic tools for genetic diseases and improving the information available to the administrations.
The Infobanco Project aims to develop an innovative regional health data network architecture, conceived as a standardised health data repository, combining information generated from different sources, clinical, administrative as in research systems, thus improving knowledge acquisition and clinical decision making.
Finally, the Integra-Cam Project proposes a novel technological ecosystem that will enable home monitoring and tracking of the intrinsic capacity of the elderly, thus improving the quality of life of the elderly and their environment, contributing to improving the sustainability of the healthcare system and integrating all the relevant actors in the comprehensive care of the elderly: patients, caregivers, and healthcare professionals (primary and specialised care).
In her defence of the initiative, Dr. Ana Miquel, Head of Innovation and International Projects of the Deputy Director of the Madrid Regional Ministry of Health Research Office, highlighted the commitment, resources and coordination of the multi-professional work team. She also spoke on the collaborative execution of the three Public Procurement of Innovation projects, seeking better results and a greater impact on health, all the processes of the PPI cycle respecting equal treatment, competition, and transparency.
Public Procurement of Innovation (PPI) is an action taken by the administration to promote innovation with the aim of fostering new markets through public administrator demand, specifically via the instrument of public procurement. This instrument seeks both to improve public services through the incorporation of innovative goods or services and to promote business innovation, using the public market as a launch or reference customer.
The three projects are the result of the agreement signed between the Regional Ministry of Health of the Community of Madrid and the Ministry of Science and Innovation within the framework of the Line for the Promotion of Innovation from Demand (third call or FID -3) to promote Public Procurement of Innovation (PPI) in the health service. Each project has a budget of €2.5 million (€7.5 million in total) for activities corresponding to Phase I of the project (R&D&I Phase), co-financed in equal parts by the Community of Madrid and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).