Medical Delta Midterm Meeting: unconventional exchange of experiences

“We are making good progress,” concluded chair Sanne de Vries. She shared the main conclusions from the submitted reports. “Almost every program or living lab is actively collaborating with one or more healthcare practice partners, has shared initial results in education, with practice or in the scientific domain, and has secured additional funding to achieve even more impact.”

In her presentation, she took attendees through the lead-up to the program, from the first initiative to the start exactly two years ago, and related it to the current state of affairs. “What stands out is that every program and living lab now meets the start criteria set in advance, such as collaboration between vocational education (MBO), universities of applied sciences (HBO) and universities (WO), and collaboration with practice partners. New collaborations have emerged, and cross-pollination is taking place between different living labs and programs.”

On behalf of the board, she told attendees what they can expect over the next two years and what the board expects from them. She also offered a glimpse of the period after that. The expectation is that the need for a collaborative partnership like Medical Delta will increase rather than decrease, with Medical Delta being approached more often for a role as a kind of “ecosystem architect,” as is already happening now. Medical Delta is also recognized nationally as an important health innovation ecosystem, for example through its collaboration with other regional ecosystems within ShareCare.

Unconventional working conference: the 'unconference'

Each program and living lab has its own specific challenges. Some are further along in areas such as scientific output or impact on education, while others still need to develop further.

Over the next two years, attention is needed especially for achieving societal impact at the level of residents, patients and professionals.

At the same time, there are topics that almost everyone runs into. How do you keep everyone in your consortium engaged without sliding into “consortium blues”? How do you secure a stable flow of funding? How do you ensure that key stakeholders, such as students, administrators or end users, are not consulted just once but remain involved throughout the entire program period?

On the other hand, there are also lessons learned that are of interest to multiple consortia. Some living labs, for example, are well advanced with implementation projects on the work floor, from which others can learn. And some programs have developed methods that can also be used by other consortia.

Blank block schedule

For all of these topics, a working conference was organized on the spot. Following the “unconference” principle, it began with a blank session grid. Participants were asked which topics, experiences and challenges they wanted to share and bring up for discussion. Topics that attracted a lot of interest were plotted into the grid as break-out sessions.

Popular sessions included one on how applications from art and culture can be used for innovation, and one on the true valuation of an innovation. Other sessions focused on a niche, where experiences and insights were shared in a small group.

The afternoon led to new connections and “bottom-up” knowledge sharing, and ended with a convivial networking reception in the garden of the Vakwerkhuis in Delft.

Download the presentation with the findings and conclusions from the midterm reports here.