HealthIL – the digital healthcare community of the Israel Innovation Institute, has joined forces with the Government Companies Authority and Israel’s Ministry of Health – to setup ‘The Marketplace’, using Qmarkets’s innovation management platform. The Marketplace is an online open innovation community that is helping hospitals and healthcare providers to respond to the urgent challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Adjusting to the New Normal with Creative Innovation

The Marketplace is an evolution of HealthIL’s existing innovation community, which previously employed a semi-manual process to manage and respond to nationwide healthcare needs. With the unprecedented national health risks facing Israel in 2020, it became necessary to significantly increase the scale of HealthIL’s activity. While in the past every hospital had to solve their challenges themselves – often resulting in siloed innovation – this platform now allows them to consolidate their needs to be addressed centrally.

How Does The Healthcare Marketplace Work?

The system is divided into two areas with unique processes; one for declaring needs, and another for crowdsourcing innovative solutions to those needs:

1. Gathering & Prioritizing Nationwide Healthcare Needs:
The first area of the system is ‘internal’ and only accessible to Israeli healthcare providers, who are prompted to submit and declare the unique needs they are facing. After this, professionals from the Israel Ministry of Health will examine, prioritize, and consolidate these needs into live challenges that will be launched in the open system.

2. Crowdsourcing Open Innovation Healthcare Solutions:
In this area the platform is opened up to third parties within the Israeli ecosystem – including entrepreneurs, startups, corporations, and academia – who are invited to submit their solutions to the challenges raised in the first system area. These solutions are then evaluated by healthcare experts and decision-makers, before being selected for implementation.

This two-pronged approach allows the healthcare community of Israel to deliver a coordinated response to both immediate emergency needs and long-term innovation challenges, all within a single dedicated platform.

Healthcare Innovation in Action

So far the HealthIL Marketplace system has been adopted by 36 health organizations, 6 government agencies, and in impressive 134 compaies that had never operated in the healthcare sector. In total 429 solutions have been submitted within 65 challenges, which has resulted in 83 collaborations between solutions providers and healthcare organizations.

The topics of the challenges differ extensively – from the monitoring of patient biometrics, to mental health exercises, to methods for non-invasive testing.

One factor that has contributed to the success of this initiative is Qmarkets’ previous experience with medical and healthcare companies across the globe. The HelathIL team consulted with Qmarkets’ customer success professionals to setup the Marketplace to deliver the maximum benefit for this community and project.

The Marketplace initiative emphasizes transparency, creating a level playing field where small entrepreneurs and start-ups can showcase their innovative solutions alongside large multinational corporations, all while contributing towards the national effort to get back to business as usual.

From Healthcare Crisis Management to Innovating in the New Normal 

“We issued a call for proposals addressing certain disinfection and protection problems, and received 54 proposals. After screening and examining of the companies, in less than two weeks, four companies have already begun pilots in hospitals” said Yael Ophir, Executive Director of HealthIL.  “The platform has proven itself as a pilot and we continue to leverage it elsewhere. In a few weeks, we’ll be examining whether it’s relevant to the transport and agriculture communities that we manage.”

https://www.facebook.com/Israel.Innovation.Org/videos/216997733063911/

“Over the last few months, we’ve been delighted to see the ingenious ways our customers have used our software to leverage collective intelligence against the COVID-19 crisis.” said Noam Danon, CEO and Founder of Qmarkets. “We are all incredibly proud to be able to contribute towards an initiative that impacts the health and wellbeing of so many citizens at this crucial time.”

Yaniv Edri – Security and Communications Coordinator at the Government Companies Authority – effectively summarises the value of the platform and encapuslates the spirit of cooperation that it represents.

“The platform has already helped hospital administrators realize they are not alone. If, up till now, they would wake up in the morning knowing they needed a solution but with no way to find one, or making do with what they had, they now know there are others healthcare agencies with needs similar to their own, and that solutions have already been found for these needs.”

About HealthIL 

HealthIL (formerly known as BeWell.il) is a not-for-profit digital health innovation community. It is a joint venture of the Israel Innovation Institute (NGO), Israel’s Ministry of Economy, and the Ministry of Social Equality (Digital Israel).

HealthIL’s mission is to enhance the development of groundbreaking solutions for healthcare challenges and initiate trial-and-error processes that lead to innovative solutions for end-users – including physicians, administrators, nurses, and patients. The community is also focused on promoting implementation channels and integrating practical know-how to support the medical sector.

About Qmarkets

Qmarkets is an established leader in the field of idea and innovation management, offering solutions to enable enterprises around the world to leverage the wisdom of the crowd. The flexible software provided by Qmarkets is designed to help clients manage their innovation processes from end to end, as well as locate, analyze, and implement groundbreaking ideas effectively.

Qmarkets has developed a reputation over the last 10 years for delivering one of the most comprehensive crowdsourcing software solutions in the world. Recognized by leading analysts such as Gartner, Forrester, MWD Advisors and Info-tech, Qmarkets offers unmatched technical and design flexibility to their extensive list of leading global clients; including Nestle, Ford, Lufthansa, Ab InBev, Philip Morris International, Bridgestone, and many more.

Qmarkets’ software offering extends beyond innovation management to include products focusing on process improvement, continuous improvement and operational excellence; open innovation with customers and business partners; technology scouting for enterprise M&A opportunities; and digital employee engagement.

The innovation management solutions offered by Qmarkets are completed by a commitment to customer success. This is shown by Qmarkets’ global team, and supported through best-practices, workshops, training, professional services, and more.