New Interreg Central Europe Project: HealthBridgeCE
The Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Ljubljana will participate in a new Interreg Central Europe project entitled HealthBridgeCE – Bridging Digital Health Solutions Across Central Europe. The project will be led by Simona Hvalič Touzery, PhD, from the Centre for Social Informatics, and is expected to commence in September 2026.
The project is coordinated by DEX Innovation Centre (Czech Republic) and brings together partners from Germany, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Austria, Poland, and Slovenia.
Over its two-year duration, the project will address one of the key challenges facing European healthcare systems: how to accelerate the integration of validated digital health solutions into public healthcare systems and reimbursement schemes. Project partners will develop a shared transnational model for the assessment and implementation of digital health innovations, connecting solution developers, hospitals, healthcare institutions, and policymakers.
A particular focus of the project will be the development of common approaches for the early assessment of digital health solutions through Health Technology Assessment (HTA). The lack of comparable evidence is often a major barrier to the wider adoption and reimbursement of digital innovations in healthcare. HealthBridgeCE aims to contribute to more aligned, transparent, and efficient pathways for introducing digital health solutions into healthcare systems across Central Europe.
The project will support the transition from isolated national pilot initiatives towards a shared European ecosystem for the validation and assessment of digital health solutions. Through standardized validation procedures and knowledge exchange between countries with more advanced and less developed HTA systems, the consortium seeks to accelerate policy development and facilitate the cross-border uptake of validated solutions.
To ensure the transfer of project results into the Slovenian healthcare system, two associated partners are also involved in the project: the Health Insurance Institute of Slovenia (ZZZS) and the Slovenian Agency for Healthcare Quality (JAKZ).