A European arena for joint innovation in healthcare: The Platform for Innovation of Procurement and Procurement of Innovation (PiPPi)

Digital health; Health innovation; University hospitalSalut digital; Innovació sanitària; Hospital universitariSalud digital; Innovación en salud; Hospital universitarioBy 2000 the European Union (EU) had recognized that its innovation capacity was underperforming in comparison to similar competitors and trading partners. Although the EU has made an effort to stimulate public research and development (R&D) through policy tools like Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) and Public Procurement of Innovation (PPI), starting with the 2000 Lisbon strategy and continuing through the 2021 updated Guidance on Innovation Procurement, there has remained a gap in knowledge of and use of these tools, in particular within healthcare. The past decades have seen an explosion in the number and use of digital technologies across the entire spectrum of healthcare. Demand-driven R&D has lagged here, while new digital health R&D has largely been driven by the supply side in a linear fashion, which can have disappointing results. PCP and PPI could have big impacts on the development and uptake of innovative health technology. The Platform for Innovation of Procurement and Procurement of Innovation (PiPPi) project was a Horizon 2020-funded project that ran from December 2018 to May 2022 with a consortium including seven of Europe's premier research hospitals and the Catalan Agency for Health Information. To promote PCP and PPI, PiPPi established a virtual Community of Practice (CoP) that brings together all stakeholder groups to share and innovate around unmet healthcare needs. This perspective presents a brief history of PCP and PPI in Europe with a focus on digital innovation in healthcare before introducing the PiPPi project and its value proposition.This project received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement No. 826157

Personalized Surgery Service in a Tertiary Hospital: A Method to Increase Effectiveness, Precision, Safety and Quality in Maxillofacial Surgery Using Custom-Made 3D Prostheses and Implants

Personalized surgery; Tertiary hospital; Virtual planningCirugía personalizada; Hospital terciario; Planificación virtualCirurgia personalitzada; Hospital terciari; Planificació virtualPersonalized surgery (PS) involves virtual planning (VP) and the use of 3D printing technology to design and manufacture custom-made elements to be used during surgery. The widespread use of PS has fostered a paradigm shift in the surgical process. A recent analysis performed in our hospital—along with several studies published in the literature—showed that the extensive use of PS does not preclude the lack of standardization in the process. This means that despite the widely accepted use of this technology, standard individual roles and responsibilities have not been properly defined, and this could hinder the logistics and cost savings in the PS process. The aim of our study was to describe the method followed and the outcomes obtained for the creation of a PS service for the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Unit that resolves the current absence of internal structure, allows for the integration of all professionals involved and improves the efficiency and quality of the PS process. We performed a literature search on the implementation of PS techniques in tertiary hospitals and observed a lack of studies on the creation of PS units or services in such hospitals. Therefore, we believe that our work is innovative and has the potential to contribute to the implementation of PS units in other hospitals

Prevention of long-term memory loss after retrieval by an endogenous CaMKII inhibitor

AbstractCaMK2N1 and CaMK2N2 are endogenous inhibitors of calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII), a key synaptic signaling molecule for learning and memory. Here, we investigated the learning and memory function of CaMK2N1 by knocking-down its expression in dorsal hippocampus of mice. We found that reduced CaMK2N1 expression does not affect contextual fear long-term memory (LTM) formation. However, we show that it impairs maintenance of established LTM, but only if retrieval occurs. CaMK2N1 knockdown prevents a decrease of threonine-286 (T286) autophosphorylation of αCaMKII and increases GluA1 levels in hippocampal synapses after retrieval of contextual fear LTM. CaMK2N1 knockdown can also increase CaMK2N2 expression, but we show that such increased expression does not affect LTM after retrieval. We also found that substantial overexpression of CaMK2N2 in dorsal hippocampus impairs LTM formation, but not LTM maintenance, suggesting that CaMKII activity is not required for LTM storage. Taken together, we propose a specific function for CaMK2N1; enabling LTM maintenance after retrieval by inhibiting T286 autophosphorylation of αCaMKII.</jats:p