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Access to the Catalan Health System

Biocat facilitates the arrival of healthcare innovation to the people through the Catalan Health System innovation Access Program (PASS). We work with all the stakeholders involved in the value chain to streamline the process: providing resources and guidance for innovators and a unified registry for stakeholders in the healthcare system to access all the innovative technology, products and services developed in the BioRegion of Catalonia.

Adoption of innovation in the Health System

We speed up access to the Catalan Health System

The main goal of the Catalan Health System innovation Access Program (PASS) is to accelerate the arrival of innovations developed in the BioRegion to patients. That's why, at Biocat, we provide services to the stakeholders involved in this process.

On one hand, we offer support and services to the innovative community to ensure the suitability of innovations for adoption by the healthcare system.

On the other hand, we identify and centralize the offer so that the healthcare system, as well as other organizations, can find the innovations they are looking for in a more agile and efficient way.

All of this is achieved through three services: the innovation platform, the instruments and programs navigator, and the prioritized innovations support unit.

Innovation Platform

The innovations candidates to access the system, presented in directory format and which allows interaction and connection between users.

Tool and Programs Navigator

Catalog of resources, programs and opportunities available to the innovative community.

Support Unit

Biocat team to support the activity of innovations that have been prioritized by the Healthcare System of Catalonia.

 

Innovation Platform

Are you a stakeholder in the healthcare system looking for innovations? We can help

On the innovation registry platform you’ll not find only a centralized, harmonized list of medical and biotechnology solutions and products developed in Catalonia, but also be able to connect with providers you are interested in or even see which solutions have already been adopted by the healthcare system and their characteristics. This streamlines the processes and helps solutions that are already Improving patients' quality of life at one center reach the rest of the system faster.

Go to the Platform

For products and services developed in the BioRegion of Catalonia:​

Techmed

TRL 4 - Feasibility test

Demonstrate the feasibility of the solution in models and with feedback from users and stakeholders.

 

Pilot Phase

Digital Health

TRL 4 - Feasibility test

Demonstrate the feasibility of the solution in models and with feedback from users and stakeholders.

 

Pilot Phase

Biotech/Pharma

TRL 6 - Early clinical phase

Regulated production of prototypes and collection of clinical and economic data.

 

Clinical Phase

Tools and Programs Navigator

A single environment to boost innovation in Catalonia

The Navigator for available tools, resources and program aims to cover the innovation community’s main needs. It shows the full range of innovation valorization services available in Catalonia all in one place. This includes acceleration programs, funding opportunities, tools for validating your project’s value proposition, support in meeting regulatory requirements, and much more.

Access to financing

The catalog shows funding opportunities (public and private) for projects in various states of maturity.

Fueling acceleration

Find out about all the calls for acceleration programs in the BioRegion.

Clinical and technological validation

Find out about the validation services available from the top hospitals in Catalonia.

Go to the Navigator

Support Unit

 

Innovations that have been previously registered on the Innovation Platform and that are considered a priority for the health system will be advised by an Accompaniment Unit, which will provide personalised support to facilitate their implementation.

How?

  • Ensure that the defined milestones are achieved.  
  • Ensure communication and interaction with AQuAS, CatSalut and the different hospitals and health centres in the system.
  • Facilitate priority access to ecosystem programmes and services (Biocat Navigator) according to innovation needs.

Startups selected to test the Support Unit

Cohort 1

Able Human Motion

ABLE Human Motion

ABLE designs, develops and commercializes easy-to-use and affordable exoskeletons for people with spinal cord injury that restore the ability to walk naturally and intuitively.

Sector: Tecmed
Subsector: Medical devices
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Doctomatic

A platform for the prevention and remote management of chronic diseases that uses artificial intelligence to help improve patients' quality of life.

Sector: Tecmed
goodgut.png

Goodgut

A non-invasive, fast, easy-to-use and cost-effective test for the early diagnosis of colorectal cancer and risk assessment in initial stages using biomarkers in stool samples.

Sector: Digital health
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Rob Surgical

Bitrack is an open robotic system that improves the efficiency of current minimally invasive surgery through unique technology, enhanced usability, and lower acquisition cost for hospitals.

Sector: Biotec

Cohort 2

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acceXible

Tool for the detection and efficient monitoring of cognitive decline and dementia through vocal biomarker analysis using artificial intelligence models.

Sector: Digital health
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Mimark

Device for the non-invasive diagnosis of endometrial cancer using WomEC, an immunoassay that quantifies protein biomarkers in uterine fluid.

Sector: Biotec
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OneChain Immunotherapeutics

Development of CAR-T therapies for hematologic neoplasms and solid tumors.

Sector: Biotec
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Time is Brain

Device for real-time brain monitoring in acute stroke and for predicting patient outcomes using machine learning.

Sector: Tecmed
Support Unit Voices

Positive experiences

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Alfons Carnicero
CEO and cofounder
Able Human Motion

The Support Unit is helping us understand how we need to pivot our business model to make it more attractive to public institutions.

Fotografia Carmen Rios
Carmen Rios
CEO and cofounder
Doctomatic

We have mapped all the decision-makers in the region and the Support Unit is facilitating contact with them, and we are already transforming it into an economic proposal for internal evaluation

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Mariona Serra
Director
Goodgut

The Support Unit of the Access to Innovation Program in the Health System has helped us identify the fastest way to evaluate and implement our technology, and to find the most appropriate form of purchase to incorporate it into the health system

Jaume Amat
CEO and cofounder
Rob Surgical

We feel accompanied when we go to talk to hospitals, surgeons... it opens doors for us and makes us heard

  • Alfons Carnicero
  • Carmen Rios
  • Mariona Serra
  • Jaume Amat

 

Operating Plan access to the Health System

 

We work with the whole Catalan healthcare ecosystem

Catalonia has a research ecosystem that is known around the world for its healthcare processes and number of innovative companies. However, new solutions don’t always reach patients as quickly and efficiently as they should. To resolve this issue, in 2022, the Catalan Ministry of Health charged Biocat with coordinating a subcommittee of experts to draft an action plan to streamline innovation adoption in the healthcare system.

Some of the actions that came from this plan are being carried out by Biocat under the Catalan Health System innovation Access Program (PASS).

 

Agència de Qualitat i Avaluació Sanitàries de Catalunya (AQuAS)

The Agència de Qualitat i Avaluació Sanitàries de Catalunya (AQuAS) is working on the implementation of a series of actions and support guides that will allow us to move towards a demand-driven innovation governance model, based on the identification of the needs and priorities of the system itself, thus becoming the key driver that allows the health system to position itself as an early adopter without creating imbalances or inequalities.

In this sense, AQuAS will make available to all entities that access the PASS innovation platform material on the evaluation of health technologies, as well as a self-assessment tool to guide them in the process of demonstrating value prior to adoption and implementation within the health system in Catalonia. For the innovations identified and selected as priorities by the system, AQuAS will also work with the Biocat Support Unit to identify the different validation and evaluation phases that these technologies will have to undergo before being adopted.

Finally, with the aim of streamlining and reaching consensus on innovation evaluation processes within SISCAT, AQuAS is working on the creation of a network (X-CAT, Network of Catalan Evaluation Cells) that promotes the evaluation of health technologies from the centres of the health system itself, in order to facilitate the evaluation of decentralised territorial innovations, thus increasing the scope and strength of the capacity to support decision-making with shared evidence.

 

Servei Català de la Salut (CatSalut)

The Servei Català de la Salut (CatSalut) is working, through a transparent and participatory process with the main actors in the system, on defining and specifying the different processes for innovation entry into SISCAT so that it includes and incorporates, among others:

  1. What we understand as innovation of value that generates impact in SISCAT
  2. What the different innovation tracks towards SISCAT are
  3. What are the main needs/demands of SISCAT in which care innovation can add value
  4. What is the methodology and criteria for analysing and assessing innovations that are candidates for access to the system
  5. A model based on the contribution of evaluation and evidence, which preserves safety, acceptability, equity and transparency.

With this objective in mind, the new Programme for the Harmonised Adoption of Innovation in Healthcare (PAHISA) will allow access to healthcare innovations within SISCAT through a harmonised procedure for their adoption and scalability, thus facilitating the adoption of innovations to promote a continuous transformation of healthcare services according to demand, optimising and maximising the quality and efficiency of healthcare provision and improvements in health.

Although this programme is still in its development phase, CatSalut has made a preliminary identification of the areas where the uptake of value innovation is a particular priority:

  • Improving predictability and working according to care processes by providing clinical decision support elements.
  • Obesity and related chronic diseases (diabetes, cardiometabolic diseases).
  • Fragility, clinical complexity, poly-medication and home care Social and health integration
  • Neuroscience diagnosis and treatment
  • Mental health
  • Advanced therapies
Read the plan
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