A new digital vision board has been tested with good results by the eye care in Värmland. Now DigitalWell Innovationssupport is looking for a partner who can take the product to market.
The background to the innovation is that ophthalmologist Jon Isacsson thought that the gap between digital and manual eye examinations was too large. He thought the digital services available on the market were both complicated and expensive in relation to the benefit they contribute.
Therefore, he developed a solution of his own: A single-card computer, marginally larger than a deck of cards and completely unconnected, which projects a digital vision board onto a screen.
- A very simple product. The only thing you need to use it is power and a screen with an HDMI device, says Jon Isacsson.
Genius often lies in the simple. Now the digital display board has been tested in a real environment in a collaboration between Region Värmland and DigitalWell Arena. The experiences have been extremely positive, says project manager Anne Katz, project manager and eye nurse at Central Hospital in Karlstad.
Saves time during investigations
From December to the end of May, the digital solution was tested in five of the eye clinic's 29 examination rooms. The evaluation with patients has produced an exclusively positive result. The digital vision board has had the greatest effect in the form of time savings when examining both eyes separately for a more accurate picture of visual acuity, for example in patients with diabetes or problems with the macular.
- The time gain is an important aspect. Previously, you had to go back and forth to change the board for the right and left eye, now via could solve it with a click. The system has received high scores from employees who have had to assess the service. The biggest advantage was that they didn't have to look for different display boards, everything is gathered in a solution that feels modern, says Anne Katz.
The innovator Jon Isacsson together with Karin Persson, IT coordinator at Region Värmland, and Anne Katz who project led the test of the digital display board.
The digital vision board has been given temporary permission to be used even after the end of the project, and the eye healthcare is now hoping for a permanent solution.
- We will definitely buy a number of paintings like this and hope that more businesses in the region will be interested, of course depending on the price. The finishing touch would be if the product could reach outside Värmland as well, says Anne Katz.
Looking for partners for market introduction
Normally, this would have been a clear signal for continued investment in the product. But Jon Isacsson describes himself as an innovator rather than an entrepreneur, therefore he is looking for a partner who wants to continue the development and take the product to market.
So instead of supporting the originator in the continued development work, a new service has been created in DigitalWell's Innovation Support: entrepreneur matching. A consultant has been commissioned to carry out a market analysis to identify a contractor or supplier who wants to continue the service.
- There is a group of entrepreneurs who just want to be involved in driving development and doing good in the world, but not push the business idea further. The basic requirement is that the service creates value - and that there is interest from the market. There is great potential here because there is already a customer who wants to buy the product. We have never had such a situation before, says Mari Banck, in DigitalWell's Innovation Council.
She believes that the new way of supporting innovation of digital health services can be important for the future as well:
- It feels safe that when you go into a test and one of the parties does not want to push the idea further, there is a chance to provide the opportunity for a new ignition. There doesn't have to be anything wrong with the idea - but sometimes a team ready to scale up and commercialize the service may be needed.
