Karlstad municipality is now procuring a development project to increase healthcare's understanding of cognitive impairment. The procurement is the first in collaboration with DigitalWell Arena's demand accelerator, where several companies can be hired to shape a digital solution together with the business.
Currently, around 150,000 people in Sweden have a dementia disease, if you add other forms of cognitive impairment, the number is much higher. In order to provide individualized care and care, care needs to increase understanding of what it is like to live with cognitive impairment. Therefore, the health and care administration in Karlstad municipality is now looking for a digital solution that can convey that experience in the training of its staff.
- In business, it is easy for a situation to arise where you focus on what is right for "my customer". It is therefore easy to shift the responsibility onto the customer, where one has not understood what the difficulty is and that it is actually about most customers. With a technical solution, we want to increase understanding through an experience of cognitive failure, so that in the long term we can improve our working methods and better meet customers' needs, says Maria Andersson, cognition representative in Karlstad Municipality.
With a digital solution that increases understanding of cognitive impairment, Karlstad municipality wants to create better opportunities to meet customers' needs. Photo: Karlstad municipality
Karlstad's procurement is unique in several ways. As the service does not yet exist on the market, the aim is to procure a development project where several companies are hired to develop a solution together with the municipality. The methodology is based on running parallel processes, where the companies' collaboration with the municipality should provide increased insights into both needs and possible solutions.
Will respond to a greater need
The procurement takes place in collaboration with DigitalWell Arena's demand accelerator. A requirement for the procurements that may be relevant for the demand accelerator is that a potential solution must be interesting for the public sector in a larger perspective. This means that the companies that participate in the procurement not only develop a solution that is relevant to the ordering customer, but that is also scalable and can be spread to more people. The rights for the services and products that are created belong to the developing companies.
DigitalWell Arena assists the companies with various support services in the development work to increase the possibilities for effective welfare services to reach a larger market.
- The fact that the scaling perspective is included from the beginning means that the first customer in the public sector, in this case Karlstad municipality, does not pay the entire cost of development, further development, operation and maintenance, but that the cost can be shared between several customers in the long term. If the service can be scaled up and reaches a larger market, it also increases the chances that it will be maintained and improved over time, which benefits both the company and the customer, says Thomas Wernerheim, development strategist in Karlstad municipality.
Per Danielsson and Thomas Wernerheim hope that the new procurement methodology will give room for more innovative solutions, which can also be spread further in the public sector.
The increased cooperation between business and the public sector is the creative engine for creating innovative services based on real needs. The procurement methodology is an equally important piece of the puzzle to create security and clear rules of the game for all parties.
Bureaucracy that can hinder innovation
According to Per Danielsson, city lawyer in Karlstad municipality, the public's attempts to find new, innovative solutions easily run aground in the bureaucracy surrounding the procurement itself. And in those procurements where demands are made on reference customers, innovation becomes downright impossible.
The method that is now being tested should give greater leeway to procure a service or product that you cannot yet see in front of you, but which ultimately better solves the need.
- It is important that we follow the law so that we ensure that competition is taken care of and that we get value for our tax money. At the same time, the law states just that, it describes how we should proceed when we make purchases, not what should be bought or what a collaboration should look like, says Per Danielsson.
The contracts that can initially be awarded to several companies in the development process are worth SEK 25,000 in Karlstad's case. During the course of the process, the potential of both the solutions and the companies is then evaluated, where one or a few companies are gradually selected to complete the development work. The fact that all companies that participate at an early stage receive a small sum, and are thus procured, means that they cannot be disqualified at a later stage of the procurement due to their prior knowledge.
- Here you will find more information about Karlstad's current procurement and the methodology in DigitalWell's demand accelerator.
