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empirica helps select 7 innovative concepts for digitally-supported hypertension care for European health systems

On 1 March 2021 the HSMonitor project launched a first of three phases towards achieving its goal to develop innovative digital solutions to improve the health status and optimise hypertension care in Europe.

The five procurers in the project, representing healthcare providers from Italy, Sweden, Turkey and Croatia, selected seven innovative approaches to hypertension management, which will be further designed in the period 1 March – 31 May.

empirica is supporting the procurers in the overall conduction of the project, including full support in implementing a pre-commercial procurement process, dissemination and evaluation of the project activities.

Wide industry participation to the HSMonitor Call for Tenders

Following a successful dialogue in the period March – June 2020 with industry stakeholders to complete the procurers’ vision, a Call for Tenders was launched in August 2020, calling for innovative ideas to be proposed. A total of 18 Tenders were submitted to the Call, representing 70 participating entities from 16 countries, the majority of which represent Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs).

Following a thorough evaluation of the submitted bids, seven projects were selected to proceed in phase I of the R&D process.

Zooming in on phase I

HSMonitor is a pre-commercial procurement (PCP) project, calling for innovative solutions to be developed by industry players (suppliers) for the needs of the healthcare providers (procurers) in competitive phases.

Phase I of the PCP process runs in the period 1 March – 31 May and focuses on designing the solutions based on the feedback of the procurers. Suppliers need to demonstrate in this phase the technical, medical, financial and commercial feasibility of the proposed concepts and approaches to meet the procurement requirements.

This phase will be followed by an evaluation to select the best three among them, which will be asked to proceed to develop prototypes of the solutions.

Figure 1. Phases in a pre-commercial procurement project

The selected solution concepts

While the procurers had defined common minimum requirements for the envisaged solutions, tenderers could propose innovative approaches to fulfilling them, resulting in seven solution concepts which are being further developed (listed in order of their tender submission):

  • HyperHealth (implemented by a consortium led by Tech4Care, Italy): a new ICT solution aimed at providing a proactive, integrated, personalised hypertension prevention and management
  • HYPERION (implemented by a consortium led by Bilbest, Turkey): empowering patients’ self-management capacity on their ‘journey’ of hypertension management
  • HyperCare (implemented by Eurecat, Spain): Fostering Prevention and Continuum of Care for Hypertensive Patients An end-to-end digital solution approach to hypertension management (implemented by DXS International, UK)
  • SmartHT (implemented by a consortium led by Innova, Turkey): an end-to-end smart hypertension management solution
  • COHESION (implemented by a consortium led by eHealthNet, Italy): a holistic approach for the Hypertension management
  • HSmartBPM (implemented by a consortium led by Gnomon Informatics, Greece): innovative hypertension management for Europe

Europe needs better digital solutions for hypertension management

HSMonitor tackles the need for providing effective and efficient hypertension management to European citizens, the majority of whom develop high blood pressure (BP) in adulthood or later in life. Hypertension is also the most prevalent cardiovascular disorder, affecting 20% to 50% of the adult population in developed countries.

Known as the “silent killer”, hypertension can present no or few symptoms, thus contributing to low awareness among the concerned population. It is currently most often identified incidentally when patients present to their GP for other reasons.

HSMonitor brings together five healthcare providers from four countries: Ministry of Health of Turkey, Lombardy region (Italy), region Jämtland Härjedalen (Sweden), Federico II University Hospital Naples (Italy) and Health Center Zagreb (Croatia). Together, they are seeking to procure solutions which address different aspects of hypertension management and care, including early detection, primary and secondary prevention of hypertension and its complications, and improved management of long-term conditions.

If you would like to be informed about the progress of the HSMonitor project, please subscribe here: https://hsmonitor-pcp.eu/stay-tuned/

HSMonitor receives funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 856698. The EU has given a grant for this procurement, but is not participating as a contracting authority in the procurement.

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HSMonitor is a pre-commercial procurement (PCP) project investing in Research and Development (R&D) services towards innovative ICT-enabled monitoring solutions to improve health status and optimise hypertension care. Five healthcare providers …

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