Happens when public procurers procure the development or deployment of pioneering innovative solutions to address specific mid-to-long term public sector needs. It is a tool to provide tax payers with public services of the best possible quality and efficiency. In some cases, public sector challenges can be addressed by innovative solutions that are nearly or already in small quantity on the market and don’t need new research and development (R&D). This is when Public Procurement of Innovative solutions (PPI) can be used to get solutions deployed. In other cases, public sector challenges require improvements that are so technologically demanding that there are no near-to-the-market solutions yet and new R&D is needed. Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) can then be used to compare the pros and cons of alternative competing approaches and to de-risk the most promising innovations step-by-step via solution design, prototyping, development and first product testing. By developing a forward-looking innovation procurement strategy that uses PCP and PPI in a complementary way, public procurers can drive innovation from the demand side. This enables the public sector to modernise public services faster while creating opportunities for companies in Europe to obtain a first customer reference and gain international leadership in new markets.

A new idea, creative thoughts, new imaginations in form of device or method". Innovation is often also viewed as the application of better solutions that meet new requirements, unarticulated needs, or existing market needs

A new device, method or service

Are innovative goods or services with better than best available performance levels which suppliers are called to meet through production innovation. This includes solutions that typically have already been (partially) technically demonstrated with success on a small scale, and may be nearly or already in small quantity on the market, but which, owing to residual risk of market uncertainty, have not been produced at large enough scale yet to meet mass market price/quality requirements and have therefore not widely penetrated the market segment of the procurers yet. This also includes solutions based on existing technologies that are to be utilised in a new and innovative way. PPI does not include the procurement of R&D.

The Integrated computerized triage system exchanges information with other information systems, including the ED patient tracking board, the longitudinal electronic medical record, the computerized provider order entry, and the medication reconciliation application. The application includes decision support capabilities such as assessing the patients’ acuity level, age-dependent alerts for vital signs, and clinical reminders.

Property which is the result of creativity and to which exclusive rights, e.g. copyright, patents, trademarks or industrial design rights, can be asserted.

IPRs represent the bundles of property rights over intangible knowledge products, such as copyrights on documents and software, patents on technical inventions, and trademarks for branding. It means patents, inventions (whether or not patentable or capable of registration), trademarks, service marks, copyrights, topography rights, design rights and database rights, (whether or not any of them are registered or registerable and including applications for registration, renewal or extension of any of them), trade secrets and rights of confidence, trade or business names and domain names and all rights or forms of protection of a similar nature which have an equivalent effect to any of them which may now or in the future exist anywhere in the world.

Also known as an intensive therapy unit or intensive treatment unit (ITU) or critical care unit (CCU), is a special department of a hospital or health care facility that provides intensive treatment medicine

The interconnection via the Internet of computing devices embedded in everyday objects, enabling them to send and receive data with the aim to enhance the emergency medical care from the beginning of the process till to the admission of the patient at the emergency room

Intubation is the process of inserting a tube, called an endotracheal tube (ET), through the mouth and then into the airway. This is done so that a patient can be placed on a ventilator to assist with breathing during anaesthesia, sedation, or severe illness.