Finland is facing great challenges due to the ageing population, falling birth rate and changes in the health and social services. Well-being and health technologies play a key role in the development of new solutions. The City of Helsinki, Metropolia University of Applied Sciences and HUS have worked together to develop a new kind of service, Health Proof Helsinki, where a new health testing environment ecosystem has been created for research, development and innovation activities. The aim is to streamline the research and testing path for well-being and health companies on their way to hospital testing.
Health Proof Helsinki offers a collaborative and needs-driven research, development and education environment to companies in the well-being and health technology sectors that has been missing in the Uusimaa region. Health Proof Helsinki allows companies to experiment and develop their solutions at Metropolia’s Simulation Hospital and utilise the clinical care environments of the City of Helsinki and HUS in their needs-driven research.
Health Proof Helsinki and its ecosystem are coordinated by Metropolia University of Applied Sciences. The university provides research and testing services in an internationally unique Simulation Hospital and Movement Laboratory for companies that wish to test their solutions in the phase preceding use at hospitals and on patients.
– There is a greater need than ever for well-being and health technology solutions and social innovation. We want to assume a key role in strengthening the business and RDI competence of companies in the field of well-being and health technology and combine learning, research, development and innovation activities and business in service provision aimed at companies, says Minna Elomaa-Krapu, Innovation Director at Metropolia University of Applied Sciences.
Technology to promote healthcare
In the Health Proof Helsinki service, the product development by the testing company is verified and validated in collaboration by the ecosystem operators. The service equips companies at different stages for research, development and innovation work, commercialisation of solutions and internationalisation with the networks of the ecosystem.
The City of Helsinki provides Health Proof Helsinki with real-life research and experimentation environments with customers and experts of the city’s primary healthcare and social services. This is part of Helsinki’s goal of being an experimentation platform for creating solutions to global challenges. As an experimentation platform, the city offers huge benefits to the city, companies and other operators by allowing services and products to be tested in an authentic urban environment. At the same time, the city offers diverse opportunities to innovate scalable solutions that generate new business opportunities.
– In Helsinki, we want to promote the growth and internationalisation of the health technology sector and to strengthen the appeal of the Helsinki region as a place for health research and business. I believe that Health Proof Helsinki’s development and experimentation cooperation with the city’s Social Services and Health Care Division will help companies to develop solutions that meet the real needs of healthcare and for which there is a wider demand. The activities will further strengthen our city’s experimentation platform activities, says Marja-Leena Rinkineva, Director of Economic Development at the City of Helsinki.
Read more:
Read more about the Health Proof Helsinki project.(Link leads to external service)
Read more about the city’s experimentation platform.(Link leads to external service)
News photo: Jarkko Mikkonen / Metropolia photobank