Text: Per-Steinar Moen
Photo: Kristoffer Wittrup

Three of Helse Midt-Norge RHF’s employees are gathered in a meeting room at the head office in Stjørdal to discuss how NTNU Discovery can be a small but important contributor to innovations inbetween the daily operations and consultations in the health service.

Trude Basso is Director of Health Sciences, Research and Education in Helse Midt-Norge and, together with Assistant Director Audun Eskeland Rimehaug and Innovation Advisor Marit Skyrud Bratlie, agrees that the hospital trusts have great potential for innovation.

“The hospital is a breeding ground for good ideas, as long as they are facilitated. There are few places where you have such a high concentration of highly educated, creative and clever minds as you have in the health service. It’s a … gold mine!” she says.

Earlier this spring, the regional hospital trusts published the report “Research and innovation for the benefit of patients”. In the foreword, the authors state that “the specialist health service’s systematic effort for research and innovation is central to how the service is further developed”, but also warn that “with pressure on finances and health personnel, it is demanding, but perhaps even more important to find time and space for research and innovation”.

Trude Basso shares this understanding of reality: “Working in a hospital is busy,” she says. In order to have the opportunity to develop ideas further, inventors are dependent on free time during their working day. “Innovation funding is a way of buying time to develop ideas and move forward. And that’s where NTNU Discovery is very good,” says Trude Basso.

From panties to artificial intelligence

Unsurprisingly, the most research-intensive environments associated with St. Olavs Hospital are highly represented in the applications NTNU Discovery get from employees in Helse Midt-Norge. In particular, the radiology and diagnostic imaging environments at NTNU and St. Olavs Hospital are at the forefront of the development of new MRI technology and are frequently represented in both applications and awards.
The research group behind Proviz was awarded NOK 1 million to further develop artificial intelligence and machine learning to create probability maps of cancerous tumors in the prostate. Proviz consists of researchers from NTNU and clinicians from the Helse Midt-Norge, who work with looking for cancerous tumors when prostate cancer is suspected on a daily basis.

“We see that many of the same environments at St. Olav’s Hospital recur in the applications, but we would also encourage the other hospital trusts – i.e. Møre og Romsdal and Nord-Trøndelag – to apply. I think there’s potential for more applications than we’re seeing now,” says innovation advisor Marit Skyrud Bratlie. “Some people think that ‘we don’t do innovation’, but they actually do,” she says.

Sometimes applications come from environments that do not have an academic research background. Nurses on the orthopedic ward at St. Olav’s Hospital face major challenges with elderly, cognitively impaired patients who have bladder catheters inserted in connection with surgical procedures. During an innovation day on the ward, they came up with a solution to the challenges: a new type of underwear, called multipanties, will make it more difficult for the patient to remove the catheter and touch the surgical wound.

Low threshold

It’s a long way from an idea to a finished product. Developing new medical equipment – or new drugs – is a process that can take many years and cost tens of millions of kroner. The first funding you get for a project can often be the most important.

Audun Eskeland Rimehaug is also a member of the steering committee of NTNU Discovery. He has previously been involved in projects that have applied for support from NTNU Discovery and other financial support models.

He believes there is a low threshold for applying for funding from NTNU Discovery. “The biggest threshold for employees in Helse Midt-Norge is knowing about NTNU Discovery,” he says. It’s easy to apply for funds from NTNU Discovery, especially the pre-project funds that are processed on an ongoing basis. “You don’t need a lot of formalities in place – you need to be employed and have an idea with commercial potential. Compared to other funding schemes, NTNU Discovery has a low threshold for applying,” he says.

Helse Midt-Norge has been the main partner of NTNU Discovery since 2013 and contributes financially to promising innovations, expertise through participation in juries and steering committees and, not least, applications from its own employees.

Trude Basso believes that seed funding – financial support given at the start of an innovation process – helps to stimulate employees to pursue a creative idea that can benefit the healthcare system.

“We see the value of how our employees, who have personal experience from the health service, and their clever minds, have the opportunity to make good solutions. We have an intrinsic value in that,” says Director Trude Basso.