Another step has been taken to create a digital service that increases healthcare's understanding of cognitive impairment. In collaboration with DigitalWell Arena's demand accelerator, Karlstad municipality has now procured three companies that will create prototypes for a potential solution.
Initially, seven companies were procured to participate in the innovation process, which in itself is unique for a public procurement. The companies have then had to meet representatives from Karlstad municipality's health and care unit and the team around the demand accelerator to present their concept proposals in more detail. The goal is to develop a digital service that can increase healthcare staff's understanding of cognitive impairment, which is a collective term for symptom images that involve a reduction in cognitive ability, including dementia.
Three companies continue prototype work
The four-week concept phase has resulted in three companies being selected to continue the work: Virotea, Minnity and Koncepting. The criteria that were decisive for the selection deal, among other things, with the companies' maturity and capacity in combination with the user-friendliness and potential of the concept proposal.
Most important, however, has been the "goosebump factor": the feeling of how well the solution is judged to increase the staff's understanding of the target group.
- We have worked with experiences for a long time, but want to get the emotional buds even more activated when it comes to experiencing what it is like to live with cognitive impairment. The value for us is that we support our employees in their skills development to be able to deliver better care and care, says Ann-Sophie Gustafsson, development manager at Karlstad Municipality.
Based on given scenario
The prototype phase that has now begun lasts for eight weeks, where the three companies each receive SEK 50,000. The prototypes must be based on a scenario that describes how a normal day might look for a person with cognitive impairment. After that, an agreement will be signed with the company that created the solution that is judged to best highlight the needs of the target group.
Ann-Sophie Gustafsson, development manager in Karlstad municipality, thinks that the process has generated new insights where even the companies that did not proceed have provided important input. For example, the solution needs to be flexible and expandable with different scenarios.
A requirement for all procurements that may become relevant for DigitalWell Arena's demand accelerator is that a potential solution must be financially sustainable. This means that the services and products that are developed are scalable and can be spread to more customers. Based on the high quality of all seven concept proposals held in Karlstad's procurement, Ann-Sophie Gustafsson is convinced that more than one solution can come out of the process:
- It feels incredibly positive, and has also made it difficult to choose. The beauty of this work and the process created by DigitalWell Arena is that an incubator is created in parallel, where the companies have an opportunity to receive support to develop. So even if you don't get a contract with us in Karlstad municipality, there may still be a way out to the market.
Focusing on needs
In general, Ann-Sophie Gustafsson believes that the basic idea for the demand accelerator, with public procurement as a driving force for innovation, can become important to cope with welfare in the future.
- Within the care and social care unit in Karlstad, we have for quite some time had thoughts of working with an innovation procurement, but that is not the same thing as procuring innovation. That's what we do here. Showing the companies vision films as inspiration is very different to a normal procurement, which often contains a gigantic list of requirements. I think this is the way we need to go, with more need-based procurement than a focus on a solution, where we ask for something we can't find on the market.
- Read more about the "Experience my reality" case and the demand accelerator
- The vision film that is the inspiration for the continued work is number two in the order on the site.
