The tender process of the European DECIPHER project opens until 25 August

DECIPHER is a project which, through a process of commercial public purchase, aims at the development of a mobile solution for citizens to have safe access to their health data when they go to other countries. This is a project joint financed by the European Union and part of the seventh framework programme (FP7) started in February 2013 and which is to last three years.

This project is a great step forward in the existing public purchase models and processes. For the first time, different European health administrations are associating in a consortium along with technology providers, to define technological solutions according to the needs of the healthcare systems. Therefore, we pass from the purchase model based on the technologies available on the market to a model based on the needs of the healthcare systems.

The Commercial Public Purchase (CPP) is organised into 4 phases. DECIPHER is now starting phase 0 (or the exploratory phase), a tender process open to any company wishing to come forth and which will last two months, from 25 June to 25 August.

Once the tender process of Phase 0 is closed, the proposals received will be assessed and the nine best will be selected to take part in Phase 1. The companies or consortia taking part in this phase will receive a maximum of 25,000 euros each to develop a solution design proposal for 3 months. At the end of Phase 1 all of the proposals of the participants will be assessed and the 6 best designs will be selected to take part in the following phase. These proposed solutions will take part in Phase 2 and will receive further funding for the development of a prototype for a period of 6 months and a maximum of 52,500 euros each. 

Once more at the end of the phase the prototype will be assessed and the three will be selected that best answer the needs identified by the health system, to take part in the following phase. In Phase 3 they will be funded with 120,000 euros each to test out the prototypes they have developed for 9 months.

The Health Department is leading this European project through the Fundació TicSalut (purchasing organisation) and the Catalonia Healthcare Quality and Assessment Agency (the coordinator of the public purchase process) which form part of the international consortium that will manage this initiative.

• Further information at the website of public contracting of the government of Catalonia and Decipher PCP EU www.decipherpcp.eu