The new edition of d·HEALTH Barcelona kicks off
<p>The fellows will be doing immersions in Vall d'Hebron, Germans Trias and, new this year, Bellvitge Hospital</p>
This January, the 7th edition of d·HEALTH Barcelona kicked off, the program promoted by Biocat to train future healthcare innovators and entrepreneurs. New this year, one of the teams will do their clinical immersion at Bellvitge Hospital, in the Neurology Department. In addition to the Bellvitge Hospital, this year’s d·HEALTH Barcelona fellows will be doing immersions in the Gynecology and Obstetrics Department at Hospital Germans Trias i Pujol and the Imaging Diagnostic Institute at Vall d’Hebron.
d·HEALTH Barcelona is one of the first European programs inspired by the Stanford University biodesign methodology. Throughout the program, fellows experience a full innovation cycle, from identifying the business idea to designing and prototyping a viable solution and searching for funding.
During eight weeks, the fellows, in collaboration with their tutors at the hospital, will choose one of the needs to develop into a business project and compile a report for the hospital with the areas for improvement they detected during their immersion.
At the same time, they take on valuable knowledge in medicine, business development, design thinking and creative leadership skills from over 70 international professors from Stanford, Kaos Pilot and companies in Silicon Valley, among others.
Over these six years, the 62 fellows that have done the d·HEALTH program have identified more than 5,970 unmet clinical needs. Of these needs, 65% could be transformed directly into business opportunities, 5% are tied to scientific discoveries and 30% are opportunities for improvement that could be implemented by the hospitals themselves.
Generating talent and new start-ups in healthcare
Over these six years, 62 fellows from various disciplines have participated in d·HEALTH Barcelona: 95% have found a job in the healthcare sector and 30% are working on their own business project.
Some start-ups that have been created based on needs detected by fellows during the program include usMIMA (MOWOOT), My-Qup, Happy Injections, Loop Dx and I-Ophthalmology. In total, these start-ups have raised €2.5 million and helped more than 1,100 patients with various conditions.
The most popular job opportunities among graduates of the program promoted by Biocat are in hospitals, pharmaceutical and medtech companies, and at research bodies, particularly in positions involving innovation. The companies and organizations that have hired former d·HEALTH Barcelona fellows include the Mayo Clinic, Hospital Sant Joan de Déu, Sanofi, Barcelona Supercomputing Center, IRB Barcelona, CSV Experts, Capital Cell and DKV Seguros, among others.
d·HEALTH Barcelona is a member of the Innovation Fellowships program under the European EIT Health initiative, which promotes the fellows’ international mobility through exchanges with other programs and their membership in the extensive EIT Alumni network once they finish the program.