The digital transformation of healthcare asks for the procurement of innovative solutions for which public-private collaborations are essential. These collaborations are often reactive and not fully connected with the needs and specifications of the healthcare professionals. To address this challenge, the demand side should be in the driver seat in innovation procurement for healthcare. Therefore, the PIPPI project will create a cross-border Community of Practice of European university hospitals that will bring together experts from the demand and supply side to identify common clinical needs for digital healthcare solutions and procurement of innovation knowledge. The consortium includes 7 major European university hospitals offering expertise on digital healthcare, patient-centered care and procurement with the ultimate aim to solve shared clinical challenges. The project will engage relevant stakeholders involved throughout the innovation procurement process at a regional, national and European level. The consortium with its network partners such as industry and payers of healthcare, will gather best practices, and develop structural capital and tools around procurement that will be shared through a knowledge brokerage platform on an European level by actors involved in, planning or interested in procurement of innovation. The consortium will identify major clinical needs from 10 university hospitals spread around Europe and compile a short-list of challenges that are suitable to solve with digital solutions and for procurement of innovation. This shortlist will be the base for a feasibility study and preparation of a concrete cross-border PCP. To secure the future use of project results, including long-term assessment and monitoring of outcomes, the PIPPI project will develop a business and implementation plan with the ultimate aim to improve patient outcome, decrease healthcare costs, create growth for European life science industry and create new markets.

Health care systems in Europe are facing various important challenges. Chronic diseases and comorbid conditions are increasing with the rising age of the population. Growth of health care expenditures is unsustainable and care is still not person centered enough. Diagnostic and treatment options are expanding and changing without a uniform method to evaluate them. Moreover, the health care systems differ in the EU member states, which obstructs comparison of the quality and outcomes of care.Value Based Health Care (VBHC) is seen as a framework to address these challenges. In VBHC health care professionals analyse outcomes and experiences that matter to patients in relation to the resources used. Several organisations in and outside Europe stimulate the measurement of outcomes, e.g. the OECD, the European Commission, the World Health Organization, the Commonwealth Fund and ICHOM (International Consortium of Outcome Measures). The University Hospital Alliance Europe (UHAE) was formed in 2017 by nine of the largest university hospitals in Europe to share their expertise in healthcare, research and education. One of the UHAE’s aims is improving the outcomes for today and tomorrow’s patients. The UHAE members and partners in the LIVE-project recognize the importance of VBHC in order to better guarantee the position of the patient, and to facilitate comparison between countries. This will allow for peer learning and benchmarking on European level, which will contribute to the sustainability of our healthcare systems. The transition towards VBHC entails important changes in workflow and requires different ways of working from staff. Care is organized in a team based approach and around the patient instead of around the medical discipline. The medical and patient reported outcomes are to be discussed with the individual patient and can lead in a shared decision making process to a change in treatment procedures and targets. Furthermore, VBHC means data capture of clinical outcome and process measures, but also patient reported outcomes in relation to the financial data. Appropriately trained staff is an essential condition for the transition towards VBHC, but currently the measures to carry out the trainings are not yet in place. Involved staff do not naturally have the appropriate skills and competences to start working like this. Therefore, the project aims to create a network of professionals in value based health care training, to share good practices and outline the necessary conditions for implementation of training in value based health care. Hence, the partners will:1. define the new job profiles and changes in the work processes2. describe the necessary knowledge, skills and attitude for the selected jobs3. share existing good practices and analyse mismatch in training needs/offers4. formulate recommendations for the implementation of training and education.The alliance consists of nine University Hospitals which are leading in their countries and they are all in transition to the framework of VBHC. The target groups (staff to be trained) are: physicians, nurses, managers, administrative, financial, human resource and IT-staff. (EQF level 3-7).The partners will organise transnational meetings (total of eight) for which specific topics have been defined based on a blueprint for the transition towards the framework of VBHC (e.g. data handling and data privacy, team collaboration, discussion of outcomes with patients and shared decision making, IT-support, finances). During the project the partners will share their good practices (and pitfalls), including good practices they learned from organisations outside of this partnership. In this project the partners will make an inventory what educational materials are available now, to what extent this can be used in training on the different levels (vocational training and higher education), what is missing and how we can solve the gapThe impact for staff members will be that they will have gained insight how the skills and competences is going to change and what this will mean for training and education development. This will result in more opportunities for lifelong learning and (potentially) further career options and higher motivation. VBHC means working on outcomes and experiences from the perspective of the patient, as well as a more patient centered care. With a better and more to VBHC dedicated education and training program, we can better enable co-creation of care. This will result in higher patient satisfaction and ultimately in increased health gains. Moreover, during and in the follow-up of this project the participating University Hospitals will gain the experience of including education and training of staff in their plans for transition. This experience is very valuable also for possible future transitions (other than VBHC).