Innovate Rheumatology
Smart, Digitalized, Personalized and Precise
Rheumatology is at the edge of transformation. How can the entire therapy journey from prevention via identification and diagnosis to treatment be individualized and optimized with the help of modern technologies? Unleash your creativity, use your imagination to tackle this plethora of challenging issues and make an impact on one of the most prevalent diseases in society.
Optional: In our free and optional Design Thinking Workshop we will help you to innovate your idea and will connect you with other participants - Register here.
✅ Challenge completed 🏁 Winner Congratulations to Vila Health, ScientaLab and Midaia for winning the Challenge. Special rewards for their innovative ideas were also given to "Cynteract" and "Joint-on-Chip"🏆 Rewards 8.000€ prize pool + working together with experts from rheumatology + possibility of further cooperation with medac
Submission Template
During the qualification phase, the goal is to identify the most promising product-oriented solutions and visionaries/visions.
To participate, you can choose one or more of the tracks we provided and submit the submission template you can find below.
The submission template is mandatory for participation: Download: Submission Template
To really highlight your ideas and bring your point across better, we would advise you to also include some further documents like a more detailed concept, graphics, videos, explanations or references to important resources and content.
Key Questions
In addition to the provided tracks your thought process could be guided by the following key questions:
Superordinate
- How can modern technologies revolutionize diagnosis, treatment or even the entire patient journey?
- At which step of the patient’s diagnostic and therapy journey could smart technologies make a difference?
- How could e.g. artificial intelligence support healthcare providers in daily clinical practice; for instance by speeding up a reliable diagnosis, communicating with further medical experts on co-morbidities, or avoiding ‘trial and error’ approaches in treatment sequences?
- Could there be further areas in a possibly personalized patient-care journey that could profit from digitalization?
Tracks
- How can we accelerate or streamline the detection/diagnosis of patients within rheumatology with a focus on RA?
- What is the pathway to reach individuals who are most likely to develop autoimmune disease?
- How can we collect and evaluate data for rheumatic diseases to intervene early therapeutically to further develop and optimize early diagnosis?
- What must a predictive model look like that enables early identification of patients with rheumatic diseases?
- What must a predictive model look like that individualizes and thus improves the therapeutic care of patients?
- What must a prediction model look like that rheumatologists can use to optimize treatment?
- How can we identify treatment success in patients more quickly, support the treating physician, and keep patients on their therapy?
- How can we collect and evaluate data for rheumatic diseases in order to develop new therapeutic approaches, to further develop and optimize therapy and to provide individualized therapy for the patient?
- How can relevant data for rheumatic diseases be made available on an interdisciplinary basis in order to further develop and optimize therapy and early diagnosis to enable an individual therapy for the patient?
Scope and medac fit
Input in the idea stage as well as further developed into projects/ products are welcomed. Input transferred from another disease is also welcome as long as it is new in the field of rheumatism.
medac focuses on chronic inflammatory diseases within rheumatology, particularly on Rheumatoid Arthritis.
This means that approaches for these clinical conditions are naturally of greater interest. Nevertheless, further rheumatic diseases are explicitly in the scope of this Challenge.
medac is focused on applicable pharmaceutical laws: drug, medical devices, and data protection regulations.
Generally, the EU level of regulations is to be respected. National interpretations and detailings (where in existance) can be considered for EU-4 and U.
Promising approaches that could be followed
- Which of the patient´s parameters should ideally, permanently or in shorter intervals be analyzed to support diagnosis and treatment progress
- How can healthcare professionals be supported in determining the required (personalized) medication amount other than by trial and error backed by experience (”gut feeling”), as it is the case e. g. for methotrexate
- How can the patient contribute to diagnosis and treatment adjustment (compare to diabetes, thyroid diseases, migraine)? Away from the occasional ”inspection” by a healthcare professional towards patient self-management.
- Ideas for smart devices? Devices that can do 2 in 1, preferably act just-in-time (compare to new asthma inhaler devices that measure the exhalation capacity, adapt the medication to actual result and provide it to patient).
Approaches that should NOT be followed
Generally speaking, medac is not focused on ideas touching alternative regulatory systems, such as food, dietary food (so-called medical food), or food supplements.
Evaluation criteria
- Would the idea/product/project overcome rheumatology-specific hurdles or improve the quality of life of patients suffering from rheumatism?
- How would the idea/product/project change the current therapy of patients suffering from rheumatism (e. g. simplifies it, allows earlier diagnosis, causes less side effects, is more cost-effective, improves patient empowerment)?
- Would the idea/product/project be suitable for everyday practice?
- Does the product/project already successfully support patients in another disease than rheumatism?
- Does the idea/product/project suit medac as a provider of specialised/niche products?
- How can medac optimally support the idea/product/project in its further development?
- Is the idea/product/project innovative?
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