Prevention reception explores the health of the future

Vinnova runs active foresight work to establish tools and processes to help understand and visualize possible futures. In the Future Prototypes initiative, Vinnova has financed eleven project that tested the speculative design method. Actors active in the art world, business, the public sector and academia have together explored the future in pressing social issues. The result is a number of Future Prototypes - which shape, test and challenge our idea of tomorrow's society.

The health of the future

At the Prevention Clinic at Södersjukhuset, you can experience a fictional healthcare visit 30 years in the future. You get the opportunity to reflect on what people want to know in advance about their health, and what they are willing to reveal about themselves in order to prevent diseases and increase the chances of a long and healthy life.

Healthcare is facing pressing challenges and needs to change. We live longer and longer, many suffer from multiple illnesses and lifetime-related and chronic diseases are on the rise. The need for healthcare is already greater than the healthcare staff available. At the same time, there are many opportunities, for example thanks to digitization, so how do we choose the best path?

• By pointing to different possible futures, we can conduct an open dialogue about desirable and unwelcome futures - and how we get there, respectively avoid ending up there. Talking about a possible future also makes it easier to look up and imagine circumstances and possibilities beyond today's limitations. which opens up dialogue instead of debate, says Joakim Skog, area manager Emerging innovations, Vinnova.

In the investment in Future Prototypes, Joakim Skoog has experienced the power of using speculative design.

• With speculative design, opportunities are created to face the future embodied in a prototype. It arouses thoughts and commitment. It makes me want to be a co-creator of my future, not just a passive fellow traveler, says Joakim.

Foresight helpful in innovation work

In the initiative Sustainable precision health, Vinnova mobilizes actors who, with innovation, want to contribute to more preventive, accurate, equal healthcare, so that more people can live a longer life in health. Using health data in a safe and effective way holds great opportunities but also challenges. Anders Brinne leads the initiative Sustainable Precision Health. He feels that foresight is liberating and helpful in innovation work.

• Foresight helps us look at how we want society to look and function. We free ourselves from the conditions here and now, which can often prevent us from thinking innovatively. It also gives us an opportunity to think about what the future challenges are, and how we can create preparedness today and take the right step, says Anders Brinne.

Anders and his team have a fruitful collaboration with Framtidsprototypen Preventionsmottagningen.

• The prevention clinic is a good example of how we can open up dialogue with the residents about possible innovative solutions in healthcare. For us at Vinnova, it is proof of the need to look at innovation from several perspectives, for example that new technical solutions need to go hand in hand with the development of ethics and regulations, business models and competence.

Do you want to know more?

Read more and watch a video about the Prevention reception on the blog about future prototypes.

Meet Framtidsprototypen Preventionsmottagningen in Södersjukhuset's main entrance:
Tuesday 8 November at 13.00-16.00
Thursday 10 November at 13.00-16.00 and 17.00-19.00
Friday 11 November at 13.00-16.00 and 17.00-19.00

Read more about Vinnova's effort Sustainable precision health.