The TIQUE Buyers Group of healthcare providers have identified a common need for the transformation of health and care services for patients with advanced heart failure and co-existing chronic conditions, frail or at risk of becoming frail, specifically solutions to implement integrated care approaches to treatment for those patients.
The procurement will take the form of a pre-commercial procurement (PCP) under which R&D service contracts will be awarded to a number of R&D providers in parallel in a phased approach. This will make it possible to compare competing alternative solutions.
Each selected operator will be awarded a framework agreement that covers 3 R&D phases.
The 3 phases are:
— solution design;
— prototyping;
— original development and validation and testing of a limited set of first products or services.
After each phase, intermediate evaluations will be carried out to progressively select the best of the competing solutions. The contractors with the best-value-for-money solutions will be offered a specific contract for the next phase.
Testing is expected to take place in Barcelona, Region Västerbotten and Avellino. This testing may also serve as a first customer test reference for the contractors. The procurement is expected to start in spring 2022 and end in February 2026.
The selected operators will retain ownership of the intellectual property rights (IPRs) that they generate during the PCP and will be able to use them to exploit the full market potential of the developed solutions i.e. beyond the procurement.
Over 15 000 000 people live with Heart failure in Europe, it is the leading cause of hospital income in people over 65 years, has a mortality of 75 % at 5 years of 1st admission and over 50 % of Health expenditure is produced in the last 6 months of life. The market potential for integrated care for these patients with complex needs is considerable.
More information about PCP can be found on the EC website https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/innovation-procurement.
Currently, the TIQUE buyers group with the knowledge partners are conducting a co-creation process to define the challenge to be addressed. Initial findings show a number of challenges to be addressed by TIQUE solutions, as:
(a) fragmentation: difficulty to communicate with other hospital services and departments of the healthcare systems such as municipalities, social services, psychological assistance; etc.
(b) interoperability: even within a given regional healthcare setting IT systems cannot always communicate or share information;
(c) need for remote care: technology allows that clinical test, measurement of variables, treatments and rehabilitation can be remote;
(d) digital literacy: for patients of all ages, healthcare professionals and other healthcare stakeholders.
In preparation for the TIQUE PCP, all interested operators are invited to take part in an Open Market Consultation (OMC) to help inform the strategy and specifications. Four OMC online events have been planned to provide an opportunity for potential suppliers to engage directly with the Buyers and ask questions. It is also planned to facilitate active discussion and opportunities for networking between organisations.
The anticipated dates of the meetings are as follows:
• Barcelona, on 7 October 2021, in English;
• Avellino, on 14 October 2021, in Italian;
• Västerbottens län, on 21 October 2021, in English;
• International meeting, on 4 November 2021, in English.
Note: due to the current conditions these dates are subject to change and interested parties should check the registration page for confirmed dates.
The OMC will provide you with an overview on the PCP process and the main clauses of the contract. You can participate in the PCP call for tender even if you did not participate in the OMC.
All information regarding the OMC and the information provided during the consultation will be published on the TIQUE PCP website: https://tiquepcp.eu/