New health innovations from data

In mid-November, the all-day event “New health innovations from data” was held. The goal of the day was to promote the utilization of health and wellness data in innovation creation and business development. More than 60 people participated in the hybrid event, almost thirty of them on-site at the University of Oulu. The inspiration for the morning was a webinar where companies could speak out by sharing their experiences of data-based development. The topic was deepened in a panel discussion, which dealt with the special features of utilizing data in business. After the webinar, services promoting data utilization were developed in a workshop, and data sharing was practiced during training on International Data Space methods.

In the workshop, the new OuluHealth DataLab services were jointly developed further. The purpose of the new service package to be developed is to support the innovation activities of the health and wellness sector in the Oulu region and thus contribute to the emergence of excellence and business. The workshop method was Learning Cafe working, where solutions were devised for the four previously outlined services. These included data expert services, data simulation services, data experiment environment, and the process of becoming a DataLab customer.

The needs brought up by the companies and organizations were related to data availability, data sharing, infrastructure, simulated data, expert services, and bringing the collaboration partners together. Companies and organizations need “game rules” for data collaboration and expect synergistic benefits from sharing data.

The workshop ideas and suggestions will be studied further to be evaluated in the development of DataLab services. The DataLab is expected to be accessible and inspiring, and it should help the companies to develop their data capabilities, and the development environment should also offer experimentation opportunities, especially in the early stages of product development. The goal is to launch the OuluHealth DataLab service concept and website in 2023.

The event was held as part of the Oulu Innovation Alliance and the OuluHealth ecosystem’s program called Data enabled solutions in preventive healthcare. The event was organized in collaboration with projects National Health and Wellbeing Data Innovation Ecosystem (HYTKI) and  Smart RDI environment for digital solutions in health and well-being (Äly-TKI). The event was a part of the actions taken by the European Union due to the covid-19 pandemic and was financed with REACT-EU regional funding.

Contact person (more information, or if your company is interested in data collaboration and piloting in DataLab)

Jarmo Pääkkönen

Project coordinator

Jarmo.paakkonen@oulu.fi

Centre for Health and Technology, University of Oulu