The prestigious ICPerMed ‘Best Practice in Personalised Medicine’ Recognition 2019 has been awarded to Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft (LBG) and its two new-funded Institutes, the Ludwig Boltzmann Institutes (LBI) for Digital Health and Prevention (Salzburg) & for Digital Health and Patient Safety (Vienna) as Best Open Innovation in Science Practice for the Establishment of Interdisciplinary & Inter-Sectoral Collaboration Platforms for the Implementation of Personalised Medicine.
In order to establish two new research institutes combining digital health and personalised medicine the Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft (LBG) together with its consultant company winnovation and its translational research partners Medical University of Vienna and University Hospital Salzburg has developed and implemented an entire Open Innovation in Science (OIS) process. Under the project title “Digital Health Meets Societal Needs – Transforming Health Systems into a Patient-Centred World” this new process implements an adequate observation of OIS principles and methods such as the direct involvement of patients, all other sorts of stakeholders, and unusual idea providers (from distant fields of knowledge) throughout the entire research cycle. The process aims at combining OIS tools and methods in support of the full unfolding of a “high risk – high gain” research potential in two areas that – at the beginning of the process – have been identified as highly relevant in current digital health and personalised medicine developments:
- “How to support positive health behaviour for cardiovascular disease patients in a sustainable way?”; and
- “How to provide digital solutions in health ecosystems, i.e. patients, families, and providers to deal with patient-safety issues and health literacy in a patient-centric way?”
For the identification of relevant research topics and questions the process covers four phases and combines various complementary OIS tools: stakeholder crowd sourcing, lead user, and lead expert consultation for the identification of relevant research areas and definition of adequate research questions, combined with ‘pitch to partners’ and ‘sand pit’/ideas lab formats for a highly competitive selection of the best partner consortia and key researchers. The implementation of this process lead to the establishment of two research platforms for interdisciplinary and inter-sectoral collaboration, two new LBI based in Salzburg and Vienna. The co-financing consortia involve various relevant governmental, non-governmental, academic, research, health care, patient, and industry actors. Through these public-private partnerships the institutes receive nearly EUR 10.000.000,- each for an initial 7-years funding period. The institutes host 4 scientific directors, 6 principal investigators, 7 international co-investigators, and their research teams. Their work is supported by 2 OIS managers, an international OIS advisory board (with 7 members each), and a network of users and target groups representatives. They combine their complementary know how, skills and experience for new co-creational enhancements and solutions in personalised medicine.
The Digital Health and Patient Safety Platform (DHPSP) has been developed as a direct outcome of this initiative under the leadership of Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Digital Health and Patient Safety, with the aim to apply open innovation principles and approaches to invigorate collaborative work in the areas of digital health, patient safety, and personalized medicine.
Project Team:
- Juergen Busch, Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft, Vienna (Coordinator)
- Gertraud Leimueller, winnovation – Open Innovation Research, Vienna
- Lucia Malfent, Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft, Vienna (until Oct. 2019)
- Prof. Josef Niebauer, Paracelsus Medical University & University Hospital Salzburg
- Prof. Harald Willschke, Medical University & University Hospital of Vienna