EIT Health

The underdeveloped South-Danube region has massive potentials with the attractive Mediterranean climate, spas, health clinics and wine regions. A group of regional innovation leaders set the long-term aim to transform the region into the healthiest region in Hungary and beyond, while creating new jobs. With high-level prevention/rehabilitation services and healthcare treatment facilities we will attract locals, health-conscious tourists from abroad and elderly to relocate or visit. To achieve the long-term goal via making healthcare facilities more effective and market focused we successfully piloted a two-tier programme to uncover clinical needs and generate innovative solutions. Our Champion Network, consisting of junior clinicians provides the multidisciplinary non-clinician Discovery Team with access to hospitals to uncover problems from an external point of view. The defined problems are put forward to students in Hackathons and Innovations courses to develop innovative solutions. In this proposal we aim to 1) expand our piloted initiative to more clinics; 2) launch a network for elderly to provide information and education for healthy ageing; 3) formalize our multi-stakeholder network of decision makers to shape the final Silver Economy regional development plan. The consortium consists of the University of Pecs, Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Pécs-Baranya, and the Health Industry Innovation Center of Pecs Ltd. We will establish a multi-stakeholder network with members from academia, businesses, government and society, organize science communication events for the society and expand the clinical-needs discovering network. Then the consortium will develop a regional strategy plan, finalize the establishment of the elderly network.