Program
In this 8-month part-time program, you will work within a multidisciplinary team of 3-4 people with different background profiles (Life Sciences, Engineering, Business, Design). During a 2-week clinical immersion, you will identify unmet clinical needs in a clinical area and develop an innovative business idea to turn into a prototype and business model later. The entire process, inspired on the Biodesign methodology, is supported and mentored by experts from industry and academia.
A training programme structured into two courses to develop a viable solution and business model
The program offers 50 hours of live online training sessions twice a week focused on the health industry and healthcare system, product development, and market access, combined with entrepreneur small talks.
In addition to the two weeks of clinical immersion, you will have three days of face-to-face meetings to work on the solution to your chosen unmet need and onsite meetings during graduation week.
This edition of the d·HEALTH Barcelona programme is currently undergoing accreditation by the Catalan Council for Continuing Education of Health Professions. The programme is structured into two distinct courses, corresponding to the different training blocks of the programme.
Explore the different modules and the content of the academic programme below.
Design Health Barcelona - d·HEALTH (I): Kick Off and Clinical Immersion
The programme begins with three weeks of intensive training, providing the fellows with the foundations they need to tackle the rest of the programme. These weeks also give fellows the opportunity to get to know their teammates, start working together as a team and prepare for the next phase: clinical immersion and the identification of unmet needs.
21/09 - 16/10
During the clinical immersion, fellows spend several weeks embedded in their assigned hospitals to observe healthcare delivery first-hand and identify unmet clinical needs. Through direct observation and interaction with healthcare professionals, patients and other stakeholders, the teams analyse processes, challenges and opportunities for improvement. The aim of this phase is not to look for immediate solutions, but to gain an in-depth understanding of the problems and generate a set of needs that will subsequently be analysed, validated and prioritised.
19/10 - 30/10
Design Health Barcelona - d·HEALTH (II): Solution development and implementation model
After the clinical immersion, fellows enter the Needs Filtering phase, in which they analyse, compare and prioritise the needs identified at the hospital. Using different criteria — such as clinical impact, the population affected, existing solutions, feasibility and innovation potential — the teams progressively narrow down the number of needs until they select the one they will focus on for the remainder of the programme. This phase makes it possible to move from clinical observation to a well-defined and validated need with the potential to generate a valuable solution.
02/11 - 12/02
In this phase, fellows move from the selected need to designing and developing a potential solution. Through an iterative prototyping process, they create and test different concepts, gathering feedback to refine their proposal. In parallel, they work on the business model, analysing aspects such as the value proposition, users and customers, the market, stakeholders, competitors and potential implementation pathways. The aim is to move towards a solution that is desirable for users, viable from a business perspective and feasible to develop.
15/02 - 24/05
The Graduation Week is the final phase of the programme, during which fellows consolidate and prepare the presentation of the project developed throughout d·HEALTH Barcelona. During this week, the teams finalise their value proposition, business model and the project’s next steps, while placing particular emphasis on the pitch and how to communicate the solution. The programme culminates in Graduation Day, when the teams present their projects to professionals and stakeholders from the health innovation ecosystem.
25/05 - 27/05
Academic program
- The future of the life sciences: trends and patterns
- Medtech industry
- Digital health industry
- Healthcare systems & economics
- Private healthcare insurances
- Health & disease in the developing world
- Medical device development
- Globalization: A golden era for innovation
- Artificial intelligence in health
- Robotics and sensors
- Legal & IP basics
- Medical products regulatory
- Business models in the healthcare industry
- The healthcare industry – Value chains
- Customer discovery
- Reimbursement basics
- Health technology assessment
- Clinical trials in medical devices