Knowledge exchange between Ergobyte and CERTH/ITI

The knowledge exchange was presented in the context of INNOPOLIS, an EU funded project that aims to identify regional best policy practices in the field of knowledge exchange between universities and enterprises.

An interview of both Ergobyte and CERTH/ITI key participants is available here.

What was the knowledge problem/challenge you had in the beginning

Ergobyte launched in 2010 a new online service, «Galen», a unique reference to all knowledge around human medication. Information was captured internally in a way that it is understandable by both humans and computers. While display of existing information is already provided to users of the service, more complex manipulation requires complex technologies borrowed from the field of Artificial Intelligence and Semantic Networks.

Within Galen, enough information was available to answer questions like:

  1. Are the following drugs interacting when prescribed together?
  2. What substances are proposed by existing bibliography for a patient condition?
  3. What dosage is optimal for a combination of age, weight, and other factors?

Instructing a computer to combine all possible matches of indications, contraindications, interactions and adverse reactions, was an important technological challenge that would be better overcome by a highly specialized research institute like ITI.

Characteristics of the organisations (institutions) involved in the knowledge exchange

Ergobyte Informatics S.A. is a software development house founded in 2002 in Thessaloniki, Greece. The company develops innovative solutions for healthcare providers, it's main products being:

  • Asclepius, which is an integrated ERP solution for hospitals, rehabilitation centers and specialized clinics that computerizes all aspects of daily operation, reducing paperwork and bettering monitoring
  • Galen, an online encyclopedia covering all current knowledge about pharmaceutical products and substances used in human medication
  • Hippocrates, an electronical medical record that allows health professionals of all specializations to build upon a single patient record by working on different views of the same information

Formal aspects of knowledge exchange

Collaboration with CERTH/ITI was excellent throughout the cycle of the project.

Three important in person meetings were held: the first one, around a year ago, was organized by George Intzesiloglou, who believed that a collaboration between Ergobyte and ITI was possible. We met with Yiannis Kompatsiaris, senior researcher at ITI, and discussed possible research collaborations. We were delighted to discover that our institutions had complementary skills: Ergobyte had medical codified data and the capacity to market profitable products while ITI had the necessary experience in building and using semantic networks. We decided to apply for a small fund called «Innovation Voucers».

During the second - «kick-off» - meeting, we decided to move forward with the knowledge exchange. Through much of the project our interactions were held exclusively through the Internet, with e-mail, dekstop sharing, chat and other collaboration tools. Charalampos Doulaverakis set up a development server and our staff conducted tests to assert the quality of the project's progress.

The last meeting, held just before the project's end, was probably the most important one: technical and scientific aspects of the deliverables were given a final assessment, and strategies for successful integration with existing Ergobyte methodologies were discussed and laid out.

The team at Ergobyte's

The team, from Ergobyte's side, that brought the exchange to it's successful completion consisted of

  • Athanasios Kleontas, surgeon, providing the medical knowledge in the form of codified rules and associations,
  • Anthimos Moustakas, responsible for collecting and capturing information from our sources
  • Grammatiki Plaiti, leading software development and integration for the project
  • Tania Vidaki, assuring quality and documentation of the end-user product

Risks along the knowledge exchange

A number of risks were associated with the exchange: on one hand, Ergobyte was giving important amounts of intellectual property, in the form of codified rules and associations. On the other hand ITI was risking handing over a greater extend of expertise than required, undermining future collaboration projects.

In order to reduce the risk undertaken by both parties, a number of preventive steps were taken: First, the exchange took place under non-discolosure aggreements. Second, data given by Ergobyte was partial, in that non-essential information was stripped off and only a percentage of the available rule base was given. And last, ITI provided only the necessary parts of the solution achieved.

Key success/failure factors & policy for the knowledge exchange

One can distinguish two very important success factors for this knowledge exchange.

Complementarity of skills and capacities between involved parties made the project interesting and fun to work for, for all involved persons. Communication was excellent, thanks to a compatible work style and a common stance with respect to unforeseen situations

At this point it is worthwhile to mention the «Innovation Vouchers», a programme organized by the Greek Ministry of Education and co-funded by the EU. Our acquaintance with CERTH/ITI begun through an initial partnership under this programme, paving the way for this knowledge exchange and future projects.

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