The needs assessment was carried out for the fourth consecutive year by the Digital Health Innovation Research Group – a network of over 20 researchers at the university.
– Quite often we are too quick to find solutions, but today we have an opportunity to dive deeper into the problems,” says Erik Wästlund, coordinator of the Arena Group within DigitalWell Arena and the Academy for Smart Specialisation.
From being barely on the agenda in the past, this year questions about how the technology can – and should – be used as a strategic resource dominated.
Around 30 participants described several structural and practical barriers that affect the ability to both develop and implement new digital services. Many centred on health data issues – ethics, legal, quality, and sharing – but several other areas of concern were raised:
The positive expectation was mainly about the possibility of using AI in more preventive and health promotion activities.
– If we can cross-reference data, it can lead to new analyses that improve health promotion and prevention. This benefits both the individual, who stays healthy, and society, which saves costs. I also believe that it is about creating forecasts to put a value on and dare to invest in health promotion,” says Anna Sandberg, public health strategist at Region Värmland.
The day also provided insights into current research collaborations – including how Computer Science is supporting four Värmland municipalities in exploring how AI can contribute to earlier support efforts for children and young people. (Read more about the Child and Youth Journey project here)
On 14-15 April, work will continue as the Arena Group brings together its partners to deepen the analysis and outline possible solutions.
– The most important thing about the needs inventory is that it gives us the opportunity to get to know each other – and the challenges and needs of each other’s organisations. This makes it much easier to do things together. These dialogues give us a genuine picture of the problems and a concrete basis to start from,” says Erik Wästlund.
The DigitalWell Arena group consists of six research groups at Karlstad University and aims to create new collaborative spaces for digital health innovation – together with the public sector, industry, civil society and between academic disciplines.
Here you can also read more about research on digital health innovation (DHINO) at Karlstad University.
The initiative comes from Nära vård i västra Värmland – Arvika, Eda, Säffle and Årjängs municipalities together with Region Värmland. For just over a year, in collaboration with DigitalWell Arena, they have been working on this issue as part of the Children and Youth Journey project.
At present, children and young people are often assessed by several different organisations – schools, healthcare, social services, the police and leisure services – but without anyone getting an overall picture. This increases the risk of children and carers with similar problems receiving different types of support and of interventions being introduced too late.
“Children and young people who do not receive the right support in time risk ending up in difficulties such as mental illness, school absence, social isolation, substance abuse or crime. Often there are early signals, but they are not perceived as worrying individually – or get stuck in the respective activities without anyone seeing the whole picture,” says Lotta Lundin, public health developer in Årjäng municipality.
Examples of such signals can be:
“If an AI-supported tool could bring together such information, it would help professionals to recognise patterns earlier and provide support before problems become serious. It’s not about replacing the professionals’ judgements, but about giving them better conditions to make the right decisions in time,” says Lotta Lundin.
To conclude the project, the municipalities are now issuing a Request for Information (RFI) to companies to explore what such a solution could look like.
The parameters identified so far show that an AI-supported solution should:
– strengthen professionals’ judgements – not replace them– provide support in SIP and coordinated care work– enable secure data sharing according to GDPR and legislation– be simple and useful in everyday lifeIn Årjäng municipality alone, there are currently around 100 social service cases with needs-assessed outpatient care interventions involving children and young people. In comparison, according to the National Board of Health and Welfare, more than 35,000 children and young people across the country had at least one such intervention in November last year. A key issue is therefore that a potential solution can be scaled up nationally.
The RFI marks the final phase of the project, but the journey towards a real solution that can make a difference for vulnerable children and young people has only just begun.
“We will deliver a final report on how municipalities can move forward. If there is no solution on the market that fulfils the needs, I think this could be a suitable case for the Demand Acceleration methodology, where public procurement is used as an engine for an innovation process”, says Elin Westlund, Innovation Manager at DigitalWell Arena, and concludes:
“It will be interesting to see the market response. If we can solve such an urgent challenge, it would make a big difference. This is a national problem and we have already been contacted by other municipalities interested in how the work is progressing.”
On 27 November at 09-11, Nära vård i Västra Värmland invites companies to an open online dialogue meeting.
Here you can read the RFI document in full. We need your response by 3 December. (You need a login to TendSign to answer the questions).
The award was presented at a ceremony in Madrid on 14 November, where NUSO won the Research for Social Services category. It highlights initiatives where data-driven insights, academic research or applied studies have led to meaningful improvements in service delivery, social policy and outcomes for vulnerable groups.
– “It’s fantastic that the international jury chose NUSO, as a national project, as the winner in competition with European research studies involving several countries. We won thanks to the design, the amount of data and the clear focus on translating results into practical benefits,” says Birgitta Persdotter in an article on Karlstad University’s website.
Since 2024, the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SALAR) and Karlstad University have been working with over 130 municipalities and city districts to monitor how the new Social Services Act works in practice. NUSO collects and analyses extensive data on how children, young people and families are supported – from early intervention to the exercise of authority – and can thus highlight differences in access, assessments and results.
By making these patterns clear, NUSO creates the conditions for a more equal and knowledge-based social service, where every child receives support based on their actual needs – regardless of where in the country they live.
A central part of NUSO is VAVES® (Scientific Analysis for Operational Development), developed by Birgitta Persdotter, Associate Professor of Social Work at Karlstad University. The method is used in NUSO to collect and analyse data in close collaboration with the municipalities, giving both research and operations new tools for development and learning.
Birgitta Persdotter is also research leader for R&D Welfare Värmland, one of six research groups that are part of the Arena project within DigitalWell Arena, where research and practice work together to develop the welfare of the future.
The Asia Pacific Circular Economy Roundtable & Hotspot 2025 was held from 21 to 24 October in Taipei. The conference brought together government representatives, businesses, researchers and civil society to promote collaboration and solutions in the circular economy.
We asked Lina Svenberg four questions to capture the interest that procurement-friendly innovation management has generated in the international arena.
What is it about your work that they were curious to know more about in Taiwan? – Taiwan is in the process of developing a circular economy roadmap for 2050, which is planned to be launched in 2026. They had read about our work on Demand Acceleration and within UNECE, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. Therefore, they wanted my input on policy developments in the EU related to circular procurement – both what is the state of the art, what remains to be done and what needs we see ahead. What reactions did you encounter after your presentation? – The most obvious was how human the challenges are – both in policy development and in procurement. The fear of making mistakes, but at the same time a desire to really be part of the change.– Many also appreciated the perspective of seeing procurement as a tool to drive innovation. It raised a lot of interest in how it can work in practice. It is also a key perspective when we want to drive circularity: experimentally exploring how a resource can create value – and for whom. It differs from the traditional way of looking at circular and innovation procurement.
Are there other ripples on these issues internationally? – Yes, not least through our work within UNECE in recent years. We have led a workstream on Innovation-Enhancing Procurement and recently presented a policy paper in Geneva. This is now the basis for establishing a drafting team to develop international policy guidelines. This is an exciting development, and we see a great interest in these issues among UNECE member countries.
How does it feel to meet this interest?– It is very inspiring to see how the seed that was sown in Karlstad and Värmland is now nourishing new collaborations, policy development and exchange of experience in other parts of the world!
Recently, DigitalWell Arena and a delegation from the project “Capacity for Quality Assurance of Health Applications” visited Barcelona. The aim was to learn more about the structure launched in Catalonia in 2025. So far, only three services have been audited and certified, but great strides have been made on the journey Sweden has just started.
Over the past decade, Catalonia has been building a coherent system for digital health innovation, of which quality assurance of health apps is a key component. This work is led by the TIC Salut Social Foundation, which operates under the Catalan Ministry of Health, Departament de Salut, Generalitat de Catalunya.
The driving force has been to address the rapidly growing number of digital health solutions on the market and the need to be able to assess their quality, safety and utility in a consistent and transparent way. Previously, there were no uniform guidelines, which created uncertainty for producers, carers and users alike.
A basic inventory showed that around 300 applications were already in use in both primary and specialised care in Catalonia. However, access for patients was uneven and depended on the hospital or health centre to which they belonged. In addition, many of the region’s 70 or so hospitals were found to have developed their own digital solutions, in some cases for the same purpose.
In many ways, the new system brings major improvements by:
What makes the Catalan model unique is that it brings together all digital health solutions, regardless of user, under a government-led framework. In practice, this opens up a single market where certified health apps are made available to the region’s eight million inhabitants.
By launching the new model, Catalonia has taken a major step towards a safer, more efficient and equitable use of digital health services. For the healthcare sector, it means that authorised health apps can be rolled out more quickly, without the need for a full review by each operator. For patients and other users, it provides peace of mind and more equal access to digital tools, regardless of where they live.
Clear and common quality requirements also provide developing companies with a more predictable route to market – strengthening innovation across the ecosystem.
Marie Granander, project manager at DigitalWell Arena, sees the clear commitment of the authorities as a trigger for much of the progress made in Catalonia.
“Without a requirement for a national framework, there is also no clear incentive to adhere to a coherent system. In Sweden, we lack such a decision, and consequently also an organisation with responsibility for building and managing it.”
Marie Granander also sees several parallels between the fragmented picture that motivated the work of change in Catalonia and the challenges that exist in Sweden:
“Today, each region and municipality is independently responsible for assessing the quality of health apps. In practice, this means that a service must be reviewed by 21 regions and 290 municipalities before trust in the service is fully established nationally. This creates unequal access for users – and a difficult market for the companies developing the solutions.”
What makes the Catalan quality assurance model particularly interesting from a Swedish perspective is that it is based on the international technical specification ISO/TS 82304-2. It is also the basis of the Health Apps Quality Assurance Capacity project, led by DigitalWell Arena.
“The technical specification is already available to both buyers and developers to support them in assessing the quality of health apps. In the project, we are disseminating knowledge about the content to both the public sector and businesses. We are also capturing the views of municipalities and regions on the specification and will use it to evaluate a number of relevant applications. This will provide knowledge about how well it meets Swedish needs,” says Marie Granander.
Catalonia’s work provides a valuable insight into how a coherent quality assurance system can be built in practice. Although still new, the model shows how clear mandates and common guidelines can create the conditions for both trust and innovation, which are crucial for increasing the benefits of digital health technologies.
Here you can also register for public sector seminars, which provide a checklist for quality assurance of health apps based on the ISO/TS 82304-2 technical specification.
The prize is awarded by the Swedish Institute for Standards (SIS) to initiatives that demonstrate how standardisation can be used as a lever for innovation, societal benefit and enhanced competitiveness.
– It is incredibly gratifying that our work is being recognised in this way. From DigitalWell Arena’s perspective, it is crucial that Sweden has a uniform framework for quality assurance of health apps in place. Without such a framework, each region and municipality is forced to make an independent assessment, which creates a fragmented market that slows down both innovation and the use of digital health technology,” says Marie Granander, project manager at DigitalWell Arena.
Other nominees for the Standardisation Award are the Renewable 2030 project and the company MannTek. The winner will be selected by a jury and presented on 21 October. In addition to the honour, the winner will have the opportunity to donate SEK 25,000 to a charity of their choice.
– “This year’s finalists show how standardisation can be translated into concrete benefits for people, businesses and society. Whether it is digital health innovation, energy transition or sustainable infrastructure, we see how standards drive development,” says Annika Andreasen, CEO of the Swedish Institute for Standards, SIS.
DigitalWell Arena is now working to evaluate whether the international technical specification ISO/TS 82304-2 can form the basis for a Swedish framework for quality assurance. The work has resulted in, among other things, a seminar series that strengthens knowledge in the public sector. In addition, a number of applications will soon be quality reviewed according to the technical specification – to provide practical experience and contribute to future guidance.
The initiative is run in collaboration with ten partners: Leap for Life, Linnaeus University, DigitalWell Ventures, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, the Swedish Medical Products Agency, Swedish Medtech, Arvika Municipality, Region Värmland and Region Stockholm.
This time it came down to an honourable mention. When the winner of the Standardisation Award was announced on 22 October, it was MannTek, recognised for its pioneering coupling technology for sustainable cryogenic fuels – from the world’s first LNG-powered passenger ferry to new solutions for liquid hydrogen.
Although it didn’t go all the way this time, Marie Granander sees the nomination as a step towards more systematic and trust-building work with digital health in Sweden.“It helps to create attention and legitimacy for our work. Several other countries have come further, but our view is that more and more people in Sweden also recognise the value of a more uniform assessment of the quality of health apps. Ultimately, it’s about increasing the availability and usefulness of technology that can contribute to better health.”
In 2022, Karlstad Municipality conducted the first procurement using the Demand Acceleration methodology. The result was a unique VR solution, ViroteaEd, which trains health and social care staff to meet people with cognitive challenges.
Since its launch in Karlstad two and a half years ago, ViroteaEd has spread rapidly to nearly 40 public and private healthcare providers. In addition, three more public procurements have been carried out with the support of the Demand Acceleration methodology in Hammarö, Helsingborg and one more in Karlstad.
The film below gives an insight into what happened in Karlstad – and how both the method and the solution made a difference.
Unlike traditional procurement, Demand Acceleration is based on users and businesses exploring together how to meet business needs, in a way that also results in a solution that can be shared.
– One of the central ideas of Demand Acceleration is precisely that the services developed are also given the conditions to spread further. When the public sector develops solutions in-house, or owns and manages them, it is often difficult to reach beyond a single municipality or region. By using procurement as a tool, we instead open up for innovations that can grow and create greater value,” says Lina Svensberg, Innovation Manager at DigitalWell Arena.
Karlstad Municipality’s experience shows that public procurement can be more than a purchasing process – it can be a tool to drive innovation. Demand Acceleration is a methodology to do just that, with the potential to transform how new digital solutions emerge and are used across Sweden.
According to Lina Svensberg, the fact that the very first service would achieve such great success is still beyond all expectations:
– Although we at DigitalWell Arena recognised the potential of the methodology, the development has been incredibly gratifying. Here, the support of Karlstad Municipality has been absolutely crucial to the development of the framework – from procurement experts to the commitment of the organisation. If they hadn’t dared to test it in a real procurement, there would have been a great risk that we would have got stuck in theory.
And the journey continues. Several new procurements are already in the pipeline, in areas far beyond health and social care. The Demand Acceleration methodology has also attracted international interest, including through the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE).
Today, more than 200 000 health apps are available on the Swedish market. However, differing requirements make it difficult for municipalities and regions to determine which solutions are up to scratch. Unlike pharmaceuticals or medical devices, there is no national body that pre-screens health apps. Instead, it is up to each region and municipality to ensure quality – a responsibility that requires both knowledge and structure.
This is where the international technical specification ISO/TS 82304-2:2021 comes in. The specification summarises the relevant quality requirements for health apps and offers a common basis to start from. The seminar series builds directly on this knowledge and translates it into a concrete checklist.
During the seminar series, experts will guide you through four key areas:
Each seminar will combine lectures and dialogue, allowing participants to share experiences and contribute to common interpretations of the requirements.
“The seminar series is aimed at those who are both responsible for and use digital tools. By clarifying and increasing knowledge of the regulatory areas, we create the conditions for using health apps in a safe and effective way in Sweden,” says Mari Banck, development manager in Region Värmland.
The seminar series is organised by DigitalWell Arena, Leap for Life, Region Värmland and Linnaeus University within the framework of the project Capacity for Quality Assurance. In the project, a number of relevant health apps will also be quality reviewed in collaboration with companies, to gain experience in putting the technical specification into practice.
Open City was launched in Karlstad municipality in October 2024 to make the city’s range of activities more inclusive. So far, the service has reached around 400 users.Open City is a result of Karlstad’s second procurement, carried out with the support of the Demand Acceleration framework. Developed within the DigitalWell Arena, the framework enables the public sector to use procurement to drive innovation processes. Instead of demanding a ready-made solution, a collaborative innovation programme is procured, in which several companies can participate.
We Know It was the company that was ultimately awarded the development contract to design the Open City solution that was considered to best meet Karlstad’s needs. It is also the company that owns and manages the service, so that it can be spread to more customers and developed over time.“We Know It and Karlstad have done a fantastic job of developing the service together, so it is gratifying that Trollhättan also sees the potential in it to improve the quality of life for people with cognitive challenges,” says Carolin Maule, Innovation Manager at DigitalWell Arena, which led the process of Karlstad’s procurement. Watch the film that describes the background to the creation of the service:
From the very beginning, DigitalWell Arena has had a clear ambition: to create better conditions for digital health innovation by bringing together the public sector and entrepreneurs. The public sector has a growing need to develop and implement digital technologies to improve the quality of care and health. At the same time, there are a large number of entrepreneurs working on new technologies, such as AI, advanced apps and smart solutions for collecting and analysing health data.
When the first version of DigitalWell Innovation Support was launched in 2020, it became the starting point for a more systematic support to startups. It helped entrepreneurs build prototypes, conduct real-world tests, protect their ideas and understand public sector needs. In the first year, 50 companies and entrepreneurs accessed various support services.
– The learning curve was as steep for us as for the entrepreneurs. We quickly realised that it would be difficult to tailor each intervention over time – but the result was still fantastic,” says Lina Svensberg, who was responsible for the initiative.
With a basic funding of SEK 2 million for DigitalWell’s Innovation Support, the companies that received support managed to raise almost SEK 10 million in investments in their first year. Many of the companies that were at the beginning of their journey are now established and growing companies. Stepler is perhaps the most famous example, whose app to reward physical activity has now spread to ten countries and attracts seven million users.
The strong leverage also paved the way for new ideas – and became the foundation of DigitalWell Ventures, a specialised healthtech incubator and accelerator.
When DigitalWell Ventures launched in 2021, support for start-ups took a new form. Through a structured programme, companies could access expert support, verification and investor networks. In April 2025, the eighth cohort of the accelerator programme ended – and in total, over 70 companies have now gone through the acceleration and incubation programmes.
– By linking our support services to more cohesive programmes for selected companies, we were able to help more companies with similar needs, while continuing to adapt the support to each company’s unique journey,” says Stefan Skoglund, CEO of DigitalWell Ventures.
Overall, the DigitalWell Arena ecosystem has supported over 150 companies – and helped them attract more than SEK 155 million in follow-on investment.
– “The real amount is probably even higher, these are just the investments we know about. And it also does not include the revenue the companies generated from sales to customers,” says Stefan Skoglund.
At the same time as DigitalWell Ventures was established, a clearer focus also grew within DigitalWell Arena: to not only support the companies – but also strengthen the public sector. To avoid role conflicts, the incubator was transferred to the Värmland foundation Inova, while DigitalWell Arena deepened its work on creating joint infrastructure that uses the power of the public sector to stimulate innovation.
– “Our initial efforts to support companies were successful, but this is not enough to bring about systemic change. That’s why we have increasingly focused on developing forms of co-operation and tools that make it easier for the public sector to demand innovation,” says Jonas Matthing, Executive Director of DigitalWell Arena.
A clear example is Demand Acceleration – a framework for procurement-driven innovation. It involves integrating procurement into the innovation process, where multiple companies can contribute to developing solutions in close dialogue with the public sector.
In 2022, Karlstad Municipality carried out the first procurement under the framework. The result was a VR service to train healthcare professionals in dealing with people with cognitive impairment – developed by the startup Virotea. The service is currently used by over 40 municipalities and healthcare providers.
Since then, three more new digital services have been created with the support of the framework.
– Public procurement has a huge potential to drive innovation. If we could use just a little more of the SEK 900 billion in annual public procurement to demand innovative solutions, it would be a game changer,” says Jonas Matthing.
Another important piece of the new infrastructure is the creation of a national framework for quality assurance of health apps. Currently, each municipality or region has to make its own judgements – leading to slow implementation, unequal access and high development costs for companies.
DigitalWell Arena is now running several initiatives to contribute to common interpretations of quality requirements – benefiting both private and public sector actors.
The focus on collaboration has also had an impact on DigitalWell Ventures, which is now part of the national incubator programme and an important knowledge node on what it takes to succeed in a public market.
– Interaction with the public sector provides an opportunity to build trust. There are several unique elements to consider here that we have built specialised expertise around, which can now be spread to more people,” says Stefan Skoglund.
DigitalWell Innovation Support remains the starting point, and DigitalWell Arena’s common entry point for startups and entrepreneurs. The DigitalWell Innovation Council also plays a central role. In total, the council has made an initial evaluation of over 400 ideas. Representatives from Region Värmland, Karlstad Municipality, Karlstad University, Almi Invest – and DigitalWell Arena – are involved.
– The Innovation Council has become an invaluable gateway into the system. It provides early validation of ideas – but also insight into the innovation landscape for the public sector. It gives a good picture of what DigitalWell Arena is all about: bringing together needs and opportunities,” says Jonas Matthing.
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