Pacmed wins regional preliminaries Zorginnovatieprijs 2025

The three contenders stood before a jury of experts during the Boardroom Pitchevent at the Cupola XS in Haarlem. Like every year, the regional preliminaries were organised by the Zorg2040 partners: Amsterdam Economic Board, ROM InWest, Rabobank, Sigra and Amsterdam AI.

Pacmed’s winning healthcare innovation is called Pacmed Critical. This clear dashboard supports ICU staff in making medical decisions, among other things. “We have developed an AI-based clinical intelligence layer for the electronic patient record,” CEO Wouter Kroese said during his pitch.

“Many AI solutions have not yet reached the hospital bedside, let alone scale up. We are the first company that can deploy AI as a CE-certified tool. That gives us a unique position.”

Read the interview with Wouter Kroese about Pacmed Critical.

Help with scaling up

Two hospitals already use the dashboard. Partly for this reason, jurors chose Pacmed as the winner, explains jury chairperson Patrick van Eekeren during the award ceremony. The National Zorginnovatieprijs is primarily intended for scale ups, companies that have already worked out, tested and launched their innovation and could use help in scaling up.

“That’s why this award is the best fit for you. Pacmed has been around for ten years, showing the need to persevere to innovate in healthcare. We think you already have a solid foundation in place and are tapping into concrete issues around AI that healthcare is working on right now.”

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Kroese is pleased with the award. “Being chosen to proceed to the finals is recognition for what we have been working on for ten years: Getting AI to the hospital bedside in a responsible way. Our company has now entered a new phase, where we want and need to showcase ourselves to the medical field. Participation in this competition helps with that. I am looking forward to the finals.”

Runner-up

The judges chose Rezolve Medical, Lennart Zielstra’s company, as the runner-up. Out of all the regional runners-up, one will soon be selected to also advance to the finals. Zielstra developed the Rise AFO, a 3D printed and personalised ankle-foot orthosis. It supports people with leg spasms and leg muscle weakness.

“Due to a trampoline accident, I need such a prosthesis myself. The classic prostheses are worn in the shoe and are uncomfortable,” Lennart revealed during his pitch. “That’s why 81% of patients don’t use this device, leaving them limping or not walking at all. I wanted to do something about that.”

Zielstra is not surprised he did not win, he said after the award ceremony. “Based on previous winners, I estimated my chances of winning were slim.” Laughs: “For me, the main goal today was to broaden my network.”

Read the interview with Lennart Zielstra about Rise AFO.

Detecting motion

Out of several dozen submissions, the Zorg2040 partners chose the three promising companies that were allowed to pitch in the preliminary round. Femke Delissen pitched on behalf of PAVA and did not win a prize. This company uses Wi-Fi signals to monitor movement, location and sleep of residents in care facilities. The startup developed a system to relieve the workload of care staff and increase the quality of care. Without storing privacy-sensitive data.

Delissen during her pitch: “Clients and patients are now often disturbed for routine checks, which can actually fuel activity. Existing monitoring systems are user-unfriendly and provide unnecessary notifications.” PAVA is now validating the system at nursing homes. Eventually, they want to expand to home care and informal care as well. “We want to make care smarter, more humane and more cost-effective.”

Read the interview with Femke Delissen about PAVA.

The gold standard

After each five-minute pitch, the candidates were interviewed by the jury: Patrick van Eekeren, Jenny Tsin and Eric Hisgen. Unfortunately, jury member Arianne van Lavieren of Zilveren Kruis was absent due to illness. The jury asked the candidates about their growth ambitions, market expectations and what distinguishes them from their competition.

“Especially that last one, all three could have emphasized a bit more,” Tsin said after the award ceremony. “What is now the gold standard in their market and why are they better? But other than that, we were impressed with the level of professionalism. The candidates told their story well. Not everyone can do that.”

Difficult to compare

It took a while for the judges to tie the knot, Tsin says. “It is very difficult to compare these companies. These are very different applications, at different stages of maturity. In the end, Pacmed’s level of maturity and good pitch were the deciding factors for us. Wouter told us about a patient who would have been wrongly sent home without Pacmed’s decision support. Such an example works very convincingly. Of course, you can only give such an example if your application is actually in use. PAVA simply cannot do that yet.”

Why did the jury select Rezolve as the runner-up? Tsin: “With his background, you just know that the company is tremendously patient-centric. And we thought his presentation, his numbers were very realistic and down-to-earth.”

Voting for the public award

Pacmed Critical has a chance to win the National Zorginnovatieprijs in the finals on 13 March during the Health Valley Event in Nijmegen. The winner, chosen by a jury of experts, will receive 10.000 euros. And help in the continued development of their innovation.

There is also a public prize of 5,000 euros. From 13 March you can vote for your favorite healthcare innovation via www.zorginnovatie.nl. On 9 April, Prince Constantijn van Oranje will award the prize during the Zorg & ict congress in Utrecht.

In addition, as regional winner Pacmed Critical, won a year-long membership of the partner network of Amsterdam Economic Board. Kroese also won two tickets to the Innovation for Health congress in April in Rotterdam.

About Zorg2040

The annual organisation of the regional preliminaries of the Zorginnovatieprijs for candidates from North Holland and Flevoland is in the hands of the Zorg2040 partners. These are ROM InWest, Rabobank, Amsterdam AI, Sigra and Amsterdam Economic Board.

Together they also organise other Zorg2040 meetings. These are aimed at bringing together healthcare and welfare professionals, industry, researchers and knowledge institutions in the field of health and prevention. The starting point is the sharing of knowledge, new research and innovations.

Would you like to attend? Let us know in an email to Gerty Holla.

Text: Mirjam Streefkerk