An ad hoc staff selection, using the most innovative human resources systems, has marked the beginning of the new global digital health hub that the Italian company Dedalus will open in Barcelona before the end of 2022.
The Datathon Digital Health event, which brings together 50 students from 10 Spanish universities as aspirants for one of the jobs that the multinational will open in the city, tests their skills for developing ideas and digital solutions to the challenges faced by healthcare and pharmaceutical organizations in the health ecosystem in Catalonia.
Those chosen will be part of the hundred professionals that the company will incorporate to form the technological team that it will establish in Barcelona with a global vision for the entire Italian multinational, which has been working for three decades in collaboration with the public and private healthcare system in Spain.
The new unit for the development of healthcare and clinical solutions will be responsible, among other international projects, for adapting the platform designed to manage clinical history data for patients in the healthcare system—already implemented in centers and hospitals in Catalonia and Spain—to a standard, open version of care processes, allowing it to be scalable to more countries in South America and Europe.
The general director of Dedalus Iberia, Marisa Felipe, explains to The New Barcelona Post the importance of locating a development center in Barcelona, "a city that has made advances in digital health one of the growth focuses of its local economy and has become a European benchmark in this sector." "Dedalus wants to contribute to these advances from the hub by attracting talent and promoting innovation, in collaboration with our clients with a great capacity for innovation in Catalonia who provide us with their clinical and process knowledge," she adds. She cites as an example the pharmaceutical company Almirall, with which they are developing a platform that allows the pharmaceutical company, specialized in dermatological products, to collect and process data and images on the dermatological health status of patients extracted from their clinical trials. In the hospital area, they provide services to Mútua Terrassa and Corporació Sanitària Parc Taulí (Sabadell).
To deepen this cooperation, in Barcelona, Dedalus is looking for a location for its technology development hub that is close to digital innovation centers and that are related to digital health, such as a location in 22@ or in Barcelona Tech Health Hub. Among its purposes is to establish itself as a provider for the Catalan public health system, "we are talking with its officials," specifies Marisa Felipe and explains that the Spanish and Catalan health system lacks a unification of management that allows it to be more effective and efficient with patient treatment, "something Dedalus can contribute positively to with the implementation of its solutions."
"Barcelona has made advances in digital health one of the focuses of growth for its local economy and is a European benchmark""It is a project that excites us a lot because it has a very important technological component because we believe that achieving efficiency in care processes and better use of resources is fundamental for healthcare in general because budgets cannot be extended infinitely," she adds. Felipe highlightsthe importance of the Spanish division within the multinational company—which is established in 40 countries— for the level of knowledge of its work teams with permanent innovation.
Dedalus has 450 professionals in Spain, with an innovation development center for its platforms in Malaga, Seville, Madrid, and Leon. The multinational's turnover reached 770 million in 2021; of these, about 25 million would correspond to Spain.