New cluster collaboration is going to improve the health of weak elderly

A new digital platform is going to help the nursing and healthcare sectors communicate about weak elderly patients’ dietary intake to improve their overall health.

A new collaboration between two clusters may be part of the solution to one of the big challenges facing the healthcare industry in regard to the nutritional state and health of elderly patients. The solution will be tailored to meet the healthcare needs of the individual patient.

It’s the clusters for food and health technology, Food & Bio Cluster Denmark and MedTech Innovation Consortium, who have come together in this collaborative project. The project involves the three companies Movesca ApS, Et-al IVS, and Care Consult A/S, along with a number of knowledge institutions and hospitals, as well as the municipalities.

And what made the project possible was one million DKK in funding from the EU-project INCluSilver, of which Food & Bio Cluster Denmark is the Danish partner.

“The Movesca project puts the focus on what food can do for the general health and well-being of older patients, and it has great potential to improve quality of life for the growing number of older citizens, which is why this project was chosen from among the many applicants,” says Project Manager Nikolai Milman.

A lot of potential and lower costs – the prospects are looking good

“In the intersection between food and health, there is enormous potential for innovation and many opportunities to improve older patients’ quality of life – but also potential to save society a lot of money,” says Dagmar Beck, Project Manager at MedTech Innovation Consortium.

Jon Henningsen, CEO of the partner company Movesca, expects the new digital tool to reduce the number of days that patients spend in the hospital and save resources on post hospitalisation municipal care.

“Our platform will give elderly patients their own individual nutritional profiles so they will get targeted and customised meals. Simultaneously, the patients’ food intake will be registered automatically, and if they don’t eat enough food, they will be offered extra meals,” says Jon Henningsen.

Movesca already has ongoing pilot projects in dietary monitoring in a number of hospitals and with patients receiving healthcare at home, but the key element in this new project is the sharing of data between the nursing sector and the healthcare sector. The main focus of the project is to ensure that the platform bridges the gap between the sector boundaries so that information can be sent back and forth between hospitals and municipalities.