Longevity is one of the biggest achievements of modern societies. By 2020, a quarter of Europeans will be over 60 years of age. Combined with low birth rates, this will bring about significant changes to the structure of European society, which will impact on our economy, social security and health care systems. The most problematic expression of population ageing is the clinical condition of frailty. Frailty develops because of age-related decline in multiple physiological systems. It is estimated that a quarter to a half of people over 85 years are frail , and this is set to reach epidemic proportions over the next few decades. While frailty increases, the average amount of health spending increases as well with the frailty level in a range from 1,500 to 5,000 €/person year, depending upon the frailty status and the setting of care. Frailty usually comes along associated with another risk facto; loneliness. Then, ageing, frailty and loneliness constitute overlapping conditions submitted to multiple health and care interventions. eCARE project aims to deliver disruptive digital solutions for the prevention and comprehensive management of frailty to encourage independent living, wellbeing and to relieve health and care services budget pressure, throughout the implementation of a Pre-Commercial Procurement scheme. Solutions should improve outcomes for frailty in old adults entailing the physical and the psychosocial factors. The target group are the pre-frail/frail old adults with emphasis on those that feel lonely and/or isolated. The project will procure the development, testing and implementation of digital tools/services and communication concepts to facilitate the transition to integrated care models across health and social services and country-specific cross-institutional set-ups, including decentralised procurement environments and collaboration across institutions.

InnoHSupport´s main goal is to bridge those gaps that hamper the progress in the definition, implementation, and adoption of innovative solutions in the healthcare ecosystem by offering a portfolio of advisory services for procurers, state-owned enterprises, SMEs and start-ups, research and technological organisations, innovation agencies and other organizations, like investors, responsible for promoting innovation procurement. These advisory services will include, among others, provision of training materials, executive training interventions, methodologies for innovation procurement, dedicated coaching sessions, innovation showcases, scanning of relevant bidding opportunities, matching with potential bidding partners, acceleration services, etc. Project methodology is based on three pillars: - Pillar I. Capacity building focused on building capacities and skills to the innovation procurement ecosytem. - Pillar II. Inventory of innovation procurement advisory services oriented towards the design and testing of a comprehensive set of advisory services covring the whole innovation process cycle. - Pillar III. Collaboration and Matchmaking to foster the innovation ecosystem building by developing spaces for co-desing and matchmaking. InnoHSupport is made by and for innovation actors: - the consortium brings together 7 partners + 2 affiliated entities from 6 EU countries (ES, NL, IE, BU, BE,UK) including a consultancy firm, a university, a public buyer and several associations with highly expertise within the public procurement of innovation in healthcare systems; - our target groups involve the whole innovation ecosystem actors: public and private procurers, state-owned enterprises, SMEs and start- ups, research and technological organisations, innovation agencies and other public bodies responsible for promoting procurement of innovation.

Hospital wastewater (HWW) poses a significant environmental and health risk due to the presence of pharmaceuticals, pathogens, and other hazardous substances that are administered in healthcare institutions. Unfortunately, current urban wastewater treatment (WWT) plants are not capable of effectively removing many of the pollutants generated by hospitals. As a result, these contaminants reach and accumulate in natural water bodies, threatening ecosystems and biodiversity, and public health through the contamination of drinking water or food. In addition, public health is also menaced by HWW as it contains important amounts of antibiotic-resistant microorganisms and genes. In fact, Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) is one of the greatest health threats of our times. While most common medicines are consumed in households, specialized drugs such as cytostatic drugs, some antibiotics, or X-ray contrast agents are mainly distributed in hospitals. Furthermore, HWW is a hotspot for the transmission of antibiotic-resistant bacteria (ARB) and antibiotic-resistant genes (ARG). To reduce the risk associated to these contaminants, it is key to remove them as close to their source as possible, and before they are discharged to the municipal water network. Despite the existence of different technologies that efficiently remove contaminants from HWW, currently, there is no single process that can be used for the comprehensive treatment of HWW regarding the elimination of a mix of pollutants to a high degree. Moreover, technology may be further developed to be more efficient, environmentally sustainable, and cost-effective for hospitals. In this context, the main objective of THERESA PCP is to launch a pre-commercial procurement process (PCP) based on the development of an environmentally sustainable on-site system to decontaminate HWW, being capable of effectively removing, among other contaminants, cytostatic drugs, X-ray contrast agents, antibiotics, ARB and ARG, from HWW.

Health InnoFacilitator aims to create a community leveraging capabilities and promoting innovation procurement within healthcare. Provide support, tailor-made training and coaching services for buyers and suppliers, develop and foster a community supported by online collaborative tools. Increase the awareness, skills and knowledge about innovation procurement among the buyers and the solution providers/ actors of innovation, build capabilities and therefore fostering the innovation procurement capabilities within the community, providing trainings, mentoring and coaching and supporting the community, which will in return, improve SMEs and startups access to innovation procurement, leverage capability among the buyers to develop innovation procurement, foster public and private partnership to encourage the co-design of innovation procurement (matching the buyers’ needs and helping the buyers to identify existing innovative solutions and to identify their needs for research and development).

The objective is to create a network/community/ecosystem of procurers and relevant stakeholders in PPI. The idea is to empower all the actors involved in PPI through this network, focusing on the procurers. We need to attract both experienced procurers and not experienced procurers if we want to succeed in this. We will also need to analyse current barriers and needs of procurers, and then create and shared tools to facilitate PPI for all the actors involved.