How can we use data to help people improve their health and wellness and/or make health services more efficient and inclusive

Challenge identifier: SC1-2017



Promoting good health and general wellness is an integral part of Europe 2020, the EU’s 10-year economic-growth strategy. European countries are dealing with the challenges of aging populations, falling birth rates and rises in chronic diseases, putting considerable pressure on public services. Traditional healthcare systems, which have been mostly designed around acute care, are becoming less able to cope and in some areas are having to undertake fundamental transformation.

At the same time as traditional healthcare models are facing these challenges more and more health and wellness data is being collected, both through these healthcare service providers, but also through consumer focused apps and wearables. Used in an appropriate way, this data has the potential to create solutions for many of these challenges and also has the added advantage of beginning to shift the focus from the management of acute conditions towards prevention. For instance, combining data from wearable technology and insight from mainstream health services may, for once, be able to power interventions in preventative health which are more likely to change behaviour in the longer term. This opportunity therefore has garnered interest both from private and public companies in using data but there are well-founded concerns from the public and some government actors in relation to the appropriate use of this data. Solutions here will both have to be able to demonstrate complex health and wellness benefits but also reassure individuals and the public sector that privacy is being respected and that business models are appropriate.

We are particularly interested in solutions that leverage closed and shared data to:

  • Use a range of data sources to create useful products and services which identify potentially unhealthy patterns and address preventive interventions and / or changes in individual behaviour;
  • Ensure that patient and citizen privacy is respected in the use and analysis of this data, particularly in the context of strengthened regulation such as the General Data Protection Regulation;
  • Combine data from legacy systems with newer forms of data which may be less reliable and have lower granularity, and translate into actionable insights; and
  • Impact on issues of policy for government and national organisations with responsibilities for provision of health services.


Examples of data include but are not limited to:

  • data from fitness and activity trackers
  • public or private data from healthcare providers based in the EU.


Expected outcomes

Examples of outcomes include but are not limited to:

  • new apps and services (web, mobile etc.)
  • new prediction algorithms
  • new intermediary technologies to integrate data sources
  • new tools and business processes to help decision making, including those making algorithms more transparent and accountable registries and distributed ledger applications
  • new forms of hardware (e.g. wearables, VR, AR).


Expected impacts

Participants will need to provide details of their impact measurement framework to show how their solution:

  • makes people healthier;
  • improves their wellbeing; and/or
  • make healthcare systems more efficient.
