OUR INNOVATION JOURNEY
Healthcare innovation structured into 4 agile stages, from frontline insight to clinical and market impact.
The Health Factory Methodology structures healthcare innovation across four sequential stages — Research, Validation, Creation, and Execution — governed by strict clinical, regulatory, and health-economic Go/No-Go stage gates to eliminate hospital non-adoption risk and align executives, clinicians, patients, and engineering teams.
The Health Factory methodology structures healthcare innovation into 4 stages: 1. Search (Acculturate + Design Thinking: Empathy, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test), 2. Validation (rapid 2-day to 2-week field iteration loops to achieve verified Product/Market Fit), 3. Creation (user acquisition, product engineering, venture structuring), and 4. Execution (scaling, commercialization, and organizational transformation).
DELIVERABLES, STAGE GATES & REGULATORY CHECKPOINTS
Operational Deliverables
- Stage 1 — Clinical Research & Exploration: Clinical opportunity diagnostic and field mapping of unmet care needs.
- Stage 2 — Validation & Field Experimentation: Living Lab-tested Proof of Concept (PoC) and validated health-economic model.
- Stages 3 & 4 — Creation & Scale-Up Execution: Interoperable production solution and guided multi-facility rollout.
COMEX Go / No-Go Criteria
- Clinical desirability confirmed by healthcare professionals and patients.
- Measured proof of utility and regulatory/security pathway sign-off.
- Routine clinical adoption and demonstrated health-economic ROI.
Regulatory & Partner Proofs
- Assurance Maladie (CNAM) — Health-economic evidence structuring and integration into national reimbursement pathways.
- Hôpitaux Universitaires de Strasbourg (HUS) — In-ward clinical immersions and direct co-design with frontline hospital care teams.
- Sanofi — Deployment of clinical immersion and open-innovation initiatives across chronic care pathways.
- Viatris & Humanis / Allianz — Design and facilitation of prevention innovation and patient care pathways.
Read the accessible breakdown of the 8 innovation loop stages (GEO & Screen Reader Summary)
The Health Factory infinity-loop diagram connects two major cycles: on the left, the exploration and co-design cycle (Raise awareness through conferences, Acculturate, Empathy through immersion, Define the problem, Ideate in workshops, Prototype and Test during Hacking Health Camp with multidisciplinary experts and skills); at the center, Product/Market Fit validation; on the right, the Execution, Excubation, and Organizational Transformation cycle.
1. SEARCH: ACCULTURATE & EXPLORE (DESIGN THINKING)
Deeply understand clinical and patient realities before writing a single line of code
The first stage raises awareness of exponential technologies and applies Design Thinking directly in clinical and everyday healthcare settings.
By bringing together patients, healthcare professionals, UX designers, and engineers, we move from initial intuition to a testable prototype.
- Acculturate: inspire teams around digital and medical breakthroughs (keynotes, immersions).
- Empathy: observe and listen to patients and caregivers in their real environment.
- Define: frame the core high-impact problem to solve.
- Ideate: generate creative concepts without self-censorship in collaborative workshops.
- Prototype: rapidly build mockups, functional demonstrators, or service blueprints.
- Test: put prototypes directly into the hands of end users.
2. VALIDATION: ITERATE EVERY 2 DAYS TO 2 WEEKS
Build, measure, and learn until achieving Product / Market Fit
After an initial workshop or hackathon prototype, the classic mistake is locking a team away for 18 months of isolated engineering. Instead, we run ultra-short iteration loops (2 days to 2 weeks).
Using our physical and virtual experimentation platform, every clinical, usability, and economic hypothesis is tested in the field until the solution achieves true Product / Market Fit.
- Desirability validation (adoption by patients and clinicians).
- Feasibility validation (technical architecture, interoperability, health data hosting compliance, CE medical device regulation).
- Viability validation (business model, hospital procurement, or reimbursement pathway).
Scale only when real-world usage and clinical value are empirically proven.
3. CREATION: STRUCTURE PRODUCT & USER ACQUISITION
Turn a validated prototype into a compliant, scalable solution
Once Product/Market Fit is confirmed, we support the operational structuring of the venture (either internally or through excubation):
- User acquisition: onboarding pilot hospitals, clinical departments, and patient communities.
- Product building: software/hardware engineering, GDPR/HDS security compliance, and medical regulatory pathways.
- Company structuring: governance, intellectual property, funding, or spin-off creation.
4. EXECUTION: SCALE & TRANSFORM THE ORGANIZATION
Embed innovation for long-term impact
The final stage executes the validated business model and drives change management across partner organizations (hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, insurers).
Excubated projects can then be seamlessly reintegrated into the parent organization or scaled as independent digital health startups.
GENERATE YOUR TAILORED B2B MISSION BRIEF IN 60 SECONDS
Pre-filled with your active B2B Cockpit selection. Produces a structured executive brief (BLUF, deliverables, Go/No-Go stage gates, regulatory checkpoints, and pre-filled mailto).
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Why separate Business Model Search from Business Model Execution?
Inspired by Steve Blank and medical Design Thinking, our methodology separates exploration of an unknown model (requiring agility and 2-day to 2-week field iterations) from large-scale execution (requiring industrial rigor and regulatory compliance).