VTT TECHNICAL RESEARCH CENTRE OF FINLAND LTD
Strategic Research Agenda
(SRA) on “Finnish Innovation
Hub for Artificial Intelligence
for Health (AI for Health)”
29.5.2017
Ilkka Korhonen, VTT
Call for participation
Boosting health and wellness research and global business with Artificial
Intelligence in Finland
 TEKES has setup a coordination and collaboration project which
targets to define a strategic research agenda (SRA) to promote
research, development and use of artificial intelligence, cognitive
computing, and big data in health and wellness research and
business
 Project will organize open workshops in Espoo, Oulu, Tampere, Turku
and Jyväskylä.
 Ecosystem feedback and interest
 Need for SRA
 Focus and areas of SRA
2
Starting point
1. Way Forward report  opportunities & strengths
2. Progress in AI
 Recognition of intercept & what needs to be done & how
3
Process
 Open workshops 20-25.3.
 Invitation to core writing team 11.4
 Outline for comments 11.4. for all WS participants + core team
 SRA document iterated with core team
 Both contributions and comments received
 VTT merged + authored entire SRA based on inputs and expertise
 Iterations out: 25.4., 4.5. and 10.5.
 V0.8 submitted for Tekes for review 10.5.
 Based on core team & Tekes feedback, SRA will be finalised
 Target 31.5.
 Final review 6.6.
4
Contributors
Special contribution
Korhonen Ilkka
Ahola Jari
Ermes Miikka
van Gils Mark
VTT
VTT
VTT
VTT
Hassinen Saara
Kahri Pekka
Kangas Reijo
Kearney Michael
Kiikku Olavi
Kinnunen Juha
Kivioja Jani
Latomaa Timo
Lehto Martti
Paajanen Birgit
Perälä-Heape Maritta
Ristimäki Matti
Ruckenstein Minna
Saranummi Niilo
Särkkä Simo
Tervonen Osmo
Viertiö-Oja Hanna
FiHTA
THL
OY
IBM
Orion
KSSHP
Nokia
OY
JY
HUS
CHT Oulu
Tieto
HY
VTT
Aalto
PPSHP / OY
GE Healthcare
Healthtech industry
Health research and administration
Psychology, user centricity
International business
Pharma industry
Health care provider
Technology industry
Psychology, user centricity
AI research
Health care provider
Health technology development
ICT industry
Social sciences, citizen, mydata
Health technology development
AI research
Health research
Healthtech industry
5
Why this SRA?
1. Health care challenges – ageing, chronic diseases, cost
containment, quality of care, new treatments  challenging
mixture leading to health care reform
2. Availability and scale of digital health data is exploding
 Finland in forefront due to infrastructure and legislation
 Integration of various modalities at individual patient level
 Integration of biological, health care, and citizen generated data
3. Data science has progressed and may generate significant
value from data
4. Health Tech is #1 hi-tech export domain in Finland
6
AI is hot
 38% of enterprises are already
using AI, growing to 62% by 2018
(Source: Narrative Science).
 $15B in funding to AI startups in
just the last 5 years, 300%
increase in investment in artificial
intelligence in 2017 compared with
2016 (Source: Forrester Research)
 AI market will grow from $8 billion
in 2016 to more than $47 billion in
2020 (Source: IDC)
Artificial Intelligence technologies Q1/2017
Forrester Research Inc.
7
Key Health Care Challenges
8
Strengths of Finnish Health Ecosystem
9
10
Workshops - Key conclusions
 Overall, SRA themes very well received and time is right – very strong
encouragement to continue!
 Building on unique Finnish data assets and their integration
 Benefiting from data + advanced / forward looking legislation as international
advantage
 Applying computational methods and AI on improving predictive diagnosis of
individual patients, predicting care needs for populations, optimizing care processes
(Social + health) and on service automation are clear opportunities where Finnish
ecosystem has competences
 Critical factors
 Building working ”ecosystem projects” with critical mass, multidisciplinary and
operative efficiency balanced
 Investment in open data architectures and access to data critical for the SRA
success – feeding whole SRA, not just individual projects
 Legal, regulatory, and ethical issues need to be fully understood, analysed and
clear guidelines for adopters and stakeholders prepared – likely during early stages
or as preparatory actions of the SRA
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SRA
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Vision
In 2025, Finland is globally recognized as “Cape Health” - a leading health and
wellness innovation hub, known for its research, development and real-life
implementations of AI based and data driven health and wellness solutions,
which improve citizens’ health and boost productivity in health and social care.
 Ecosystem with industry, care providers &
interdisciplinary academia
 PPP model
 World-class competence and results
 Attracts investments and talents
 Successful companies
 Leverages unique Finnish health data
 Paradigm shift – accumulation of research data
from operative processes
 Creates AI enabled health and social care and
wellness products and services
 Improved productivity and health outcomes
 Global success stories (product, services,
research)
 Data driven decisions at all levels




Citizen
Care provider
Administration
Policy
 Up-to-date legislation and regulations, deep
understanding of these requirements (incl. Ethics
+ societal + human factors) applied while creating
products and services
 Wide real-life implementations
 Sandboxes for development
 Wide-scale demonstration
 Uptake to realize health and social care benefits
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Priority Areas
P1: Personalised Interventions
P2: Automated Health Data Analytics
Application
area
P3: Continuous Care
P4: Health and Social Care Resource & Process Optimization
P5: Service Automation in Health and Social Care
P6: Informed Society Public Health Decisions
Key Asset 1:
Data
Key Asset 2:
Team
Key Asset 3:
Infrastructure
Essential
capabilities
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Priority area assessment
Priority area
#1: Personalized interventions
#2: Automated health data
analytics
#3: Continuous care
#4: Health and social care
resource and process
optimization
#5: Service automation in
health and social care
#6: Informed society public
health decisions




Access to
unique data
+++
World- class
competence
+++
Healthcare
impact
++
Global market
potential
+++
+++
+++
+
+++
+++
+++
++
+++
++
+
+++
+
+
+++
+
++
++
+
Data - does the Finnish ecosystem provide access to unique data assets which might generate unique competitive
advantage in global perspective?
Competence - are necessary competences to address the priority area challenges available in the ecosystem, both
in quality (world class competence) and in sufficient critical mass, including potential industrial partners to exploit the
results commercially?
Impact - what would be the foreseen impact on health and social care or wellness services in case of success,
especially in terms of health outcomes and/or productivity?
Global market potential - what is the foreseen commercial exploitation potential of the results for global markets?
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Key assets – each key activity must demonstrate
these as strengths
Data
Access to high
quality &
representative data
Possibility to use it
(consents +
contracts)
Team
Balanced
consortium (industry
+ interdisciplinary
scientists + care
providers)
Commitment for
collaboration
Infrastructure
Data (access +
interfaces)
+
Legal (enablers)
+
Funding
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Action recommendations
#1: Public-private partnerships (PPP). Close collaboration between leading industry partner(s) and SMEs, health care
providers, and research partners, in a balanced manner, with strong commitment to collaboration, and a shared vision. Clear
rules and model contracts and practices for data access, including financial cost model and IPR are essential.
#2: R&D focus on the identified priority areas. Actions should emphasize the identified priority areas. Priority areas
should be updated during the implementation of the SRA.
#3: Access to national Key assets: data, infra and team. Actions must demonstrate access to necessary data assets
(quality & quantity), R&D infrastructure and competence (world-class quality and critical mass), and strong commitment to
the project and collaboration. Actions must specify compliance with legal, privacy, regulatory and ethical demands
#4: Agile work plan towards well defined objectives. Action implementation should follow agile principles : emphasize
final targets and vision, measurable intermediate milestones, and concrete KPIs, including international dissemination and
commercialization plan. Detailed Work Plan only one year at a time. Funding should be committed for 3-5y. Progress
should be reviewed at least annually, with possibility to budget re-allocation within consortium, including controlled changes
in the consortium.
#5: Scaling and adaptation to market, from local to global. Actions must target selected global markets or significant
health and social care impact. Finnish infrastructure as a launch pad towards selected target markets, and as a reference /
spearhead implementation demonstrating the value of AI for Health applications in wide. The regulatory environment and
legislation in the target markets need to be reviewed. Concrete international collaboration and dissemination must be on the
roadmap. Participation of varying funding instruments, including private funding is desirable. Real life implementations with
sufficient scale to validate solutions and evaluate their impact with convincing power should be targeted.
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Key breakthrough targets
Active Finnish
Health hub
innovation
ecosystem
AI for Health SRA
Economic growth
for Finnish
Healthtech and AI
for Health cluster
Improved health
outcomes and
productivity
Finland globally
recognized
Cape Health
Increased use of
data in all levels of
decisions
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What next
 SRA presented for Tekes June 6
 Possible further actions by Tekes and other funding bodies to be
annpunced later 2017
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TECHNOLOGY FOR BUSINESS