She has previously contributed to increasing the safety of Volvo cars - now Elin Fouganthine wants to support the public sector in exploiting the potential of digital health and welfare technology: "It gives me drive and commitment, because it affects so many. In the end, it's about people should feel good."
Elin Fouganthine is the new Innovation Manager at DigitalWell Arena since September. Her biggest focus right now is on creating so-called "Health Arenas". Collaborative spaces where the public sector, business and academia can together test and develop digital health services that can contribute to solving our major societal challenges.
- The focus is to find out how digital technology in a more comprehensive and integrated way can contribute to solving various challenges, where individual tests can provide knowledge to build on. It is a way to work up your innovation methodology and makes it easier to adopt new solutions when they come. Testing things has value in itself, says Elin Fouganthine.
Scalability an important point
She sees her own role as being a bridge between the business world and the public sector, where tests in a real environment should both contribute to creating benefits in the business and increase contact surfaces. An important point of testing digital health and welfare services is also to help ensure that effective solutions reach as many people as possible, something that benefits both companies and the public sector.
- It's not about helping a single municipality with mental illness, if a solution turns out to be successful, we want to make it available to all municipalities. We are not only testing new technology, but also new ways of collaborating, says Elin Fouganthine.
Elin Fouganthine, Innovation Manager at DigitalWell Arena.
Basically, she is a civil engineer, with a focus on technical design. She herself describes her job within DigitalWell Arena as a service profession, to support those who want to change in daring to use new technology. At the same time, of course, the users' perspective is always in focus. An experience she has with her after five years in the car industry, where customer demand was a constant driving force for change.
Safe tests of new methods
From the automotive industry, Elin Fouganthine also brings with her an example of how a small change can sometimes have a big effect. By questioning a component on the brake fluid reservoirs, she helped reduce the risk of fire in the event of a crash.
- Simply removing a small piece of plastic turned out to work great. I received a patent for that solution, which since 2016 has been found in almost all Volvo cars. I think it's important to create new questions, if we do something in a way that doesn't work - can't we change it then? DigitalWell Arena will help test new things in the public sector in a safe way that does not endanger the core business, says Elin Fouganthine.
Network of contacts that opens up new ideas
She also believes that DigitalWell Arena's rapidly growing contact network can be a great asset for identifying and demonstrating the power of digital solutions. A current example is Geras Solutions' digital tool for dementia investigations, which is being tested in Torsby. A type of distance-based health service that can contribute to new working methods to reduce the lack of resources that otherwise threatens the public sector, believes Elin Fouganthine:
- If a task is very resource-demanding, it is not certain that it will help to recruit more people, instead we may have to look for a new solution that frees up resources. It's not about replacing staff with digital gadgets, but doing the right things so that we can really nurture and care for people.
