The COVID-19 crisis is confronting society with huge challenges. Governments all over the world are focusing on the complex task of setting up rapid high-volume vaccination campaigns so that life can get back to normal as soon as possible. In consonance with these efforts, blockchain technology can help tackle several of the challenges imposed by COVID-19, and it can even help our economy recover more quickly from this pandemic. Professor Kristof Stouthuysen and researcher Tineke Distelmans talk about the possible applications of blockchain in vaccine tracking and storage, a COVID-19 passport and the global organisation of supply chains.

Making vaccine technology freely available to everyone sounds good. According to Professor Walter Van Dyck, patent prohibition however will slow down access to vaccine technology and, worse still, dry up innovation. To tackle the debilitating battle with the virus, you need a small number of global, capital-rich pharmaceutical companies at the heart of an ecosystem that builds on initial university research and has the scale to lead global distribution.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a hot topic, in healthcare too. How can AI improve the quality and efficiency of the delivery of healthcare? Dr Erik R. Ranschaert, AI Expert and Radiologist at the Netherlands Cancer Institute (NKI) in Amsterdam, explained the opportunities and challenges of AI in radiology during a webinar organised by Vlerick Healthcare Management Centre. For those who missed the webinar, we will explain the main insights below.

Healthcare institutions can play their part in counteracting rising healthcare costs. The fact is that contributions from the government and insurers will not and cannot increase very much: in that respect the limit has been reached. Professor Filip Roodhooft from Vlerick Business School makes a case for a value-based healthcare model.

The Vlerick Healthcare Management Centre and the Caring Entrepreneurship Fund (CEF) share a mission – to give healthcare start-ups a boost. We achieve this by running our Accelerating your healthcare start-up programme, while the CEF offers financial support, networking and advice to entrepreneurs in the health sector. But from now on, we’ll be working together.

Tech entrepreneur Jelle Van De Velde and doctor Servaas Bingé got talking more than two years ago when Jelle wanted to walk the 10 Miles and visited Servaas for a preventive sports examination consultation. “The dashboard in your car tells you how things are looking at any given moment. Warning lights indicate problems with the engine, the oil pressure or the tyre pressure and let you know when maintenance is required,” says Jelle. “We wondered whether we could do something similar for the human body.” That was the beginning of their start-up, Emma Health, a digital platform for data-driven, personalised preventive healthcare. Our ‘Accelerating Your Healthcare Start-up’ programme gave their start-up a boost.

Recently Professor Zeynep Erden joined our Healthcare Management Centre. She is an innovation and strategy scholar, with a special focus on technology and knowledge management in the pharmaceutical industry. “I try to understand what fosters or hinders innovation and which innovation strategies lead to competitive advantages for pharmaceutical companies. I’m particularly interested in how new technologies change the way organisations innovate.” She identifies three major trends that are currently shaping the innovation strategies of pharmaceutical companies: patients first, advanced data analytics and a call for better and cheaper medicines.

Would you like to test yourself for STDs at home? Monitor your own risk of developing diabetes or heart failure? It might sound like science fiction but if Bart Geers has anything to do with it, it will soon become reality. As the co-founder of Antelope Diagnostics, he attended our ‘Boost your healthcare start-up’ programme. This intensive bootcamp has taken his pitch to a higher level, ready to convince investors to come on board.

Healthcare systems vary enormously across the world. Which is why every three years, our MINOZ Research Centre organises a study trip that gives members the opportunity to see how other countries do things. This year, participants from eight Belgian hospitals went to Canada to find out how the country organises hospital networks.

When Masters in General Management students Boris Parmentier and Eva Roos were arranging their in-company project, they knew exactly what they wanted – to work abroad, preferably in supply chain management. Steven Baekelandt from Roche Diagnostics in Switzerland, had the perfect challenge in mind – developing a data model to analyse the advantages of regional production. They take a look back at their eight-week collaboration