The Open Market consultation was an essential part of the PCP Challenge preparation

With a careful market consultation, the RELIEF consortium wanted to get insight into the market; the state of the art and future developments of eHealth sector in order to prepare an adequate procurement with the right and feasible scope.

To gain this knowledge several activities were conducted: bilateral meetings with companies, online-questionnaire open to all interested entities and 3 different workshops organized in the countries of the Buyer’s Group (France, Spain and Sweden).

The outcomes of the market consultation activities was a comprehensive insight into the current state of the art of ehealth. In addition, it allowed entities participating to know deeply the PCP procedure and support the RELIEF consortium in redefining a feasible scope and tender specifications.

To view the full Market Consultation Outcomes report, click here.

On the 5th July 2017, the RELIEF Pre-Commercial Procurement call was opened to acquire the research and development services of new ICT that improve the self-management of chronic pain patients.

Interested tenderers submitted their offers until the closing date 15th September 2017.

We received 17 offers which were evaluated by the RELIEF Evaluation Committee formed by a multidisciplinary group of healthcare providers, project managers, IT experts from the consortium.

After evaluating the received offers, we finally awarded 7 suppliers for starting to develop Phase 1.

• Although the competitive phased approach it is a good vision, in practice, managing a lot of contractors in Phases 1 and 2 can prejudice the good day a day collaboration between contractors and procurers.
  We recommend to pay attention to the PCP budget definition per phases. This way, you ensure encouraging the competitive approach of the PCP without exceeding a lot the number of companies involved in Phases 1 and 2 (Phase 2 and Phase 2).
• Analysis and understanding of the procurers own environments was perceived as a challenge by the contractors, mainly because to respect the equal competition between the companies, it is not possible to work in close collaboration individually with each of them (Phase 1 and Phase 2).
• A good monitoring process is critical to success, as well as ensuring a continous interaction between procurers and contractors (Phase 1 and Phase 2).
• It is important to clarify since the begining the rules and purposes of monitoring meetings to ensure that contractors presents the results and the progresses in the correct way (Phase 2).
• The use of same templates and structure to present the progress and results facilitate the correct evaluation of the different contractors (Phase 2).
• Favour co-creation is totally subjected to the availability and strong coordination of the buyer's group involved in the PCP projects, but remain limited to guarantee the same level of information provided to each contrators (Phase 1 and Phase 2).
• KPI establisment are really necessary to facilitate the good evaluation of prototypes (Phase 2).
• Timings are really tight in PCP procedures which involves delays that cannot be always overcame, although buffers were contemplated. This fact means a problem when you are implementing a PCP in a H2020 project.
  More bureacratic management is consumed. Always planned more time than originally foreseen. (all PCP phases).

After developed Phase 1 and Phase 2, we are finally involved in Phase 3. since the beginning of April 2019. Two contractors are now working on the field testing of their prototypes developed in the past Phases.

At this stage, we have already completed the preliminary tasks before starting the field testing itself:

• Prototypes local adaptation at each procurer site
• Pilot test to ensure that all field-testing details are correctly set up

Since the beginning of October 2019, we can finally state that the Field Testing of Phase 3 started; this also means that the 3 procurers are now dealing with the recruitment process to involve 120 chronic pain patients in the clinical trial.

More information about Phase 3 progress will be published in the following Newsletter and can be followed in RELIEF Social Media Channels.

RELIEF Phase 3 – Kick off Meeting (09 April 2019. Uppsala, Sweden)