Maria Middelares helps build a brand new business and event centre with a focus on health

WATT The Health, a project idea from Ghent-based developer Revive, will focus on HealthTech, MedTech and SportTech.

The business centre will be located on the top four floors of the Maria Middelares Medical Centre on Kliniekstraat in Ghent-Bruges. Starting from May 2025, tech companies from the health and sports sectors will come together and inspire each other in 4,600 square metres of space and benefit from shared services. The 24-metre-high rooftop with roof garden already promises the most beautiful panorama of historic Ghent.

WATT The Health is the first instalment of the ambitious redevelopment project 't Verband, which aims to transform the site into 'the healthiest neighbourhood in Flanders'. Thus, the entire site will be greened and there will be several projects to strengthen both the physical and mental health of the residents.

Maria Middelares and Revive sat down to redraw the future plan of the site, located in the Oud-Gentbrugge neighbourhood. That already includes the medical centre of Maria Middelares, the Ter Hovingen Residential Care Centre and District Health Centre De Punt. Besides future housing (10 houses and a flat block with 39 residential units), Revive is also building a brand new Health Arena there with various partners, a place where people can take preventative action on their health, backed up by the latest innovations. Revive has already demolished several old buildings and is constructing a new public green inner area there, including a 6,500 square metre neighbourhood park, an indoor and roof garden, underground parking and a publicly accessible lunch bar.

The business centre focuses on tech companies that are suppliers to the healthcare and sports sectors. This should stimulate cross-pollination between tech companies and the adjacent healthcare sector. Innovations and new technologies can be put into practice more quickly. Consider, for example, the development of a monitoring device for elderly people who have cardiac arrhythmias. For this, a tech company can consult the hospital and have the prototype tested there by the intended target audience. In this way, Flemish technology products and equipment can be quickly tested and brought to market. But it also works in reverse. Useful tech can be developed at the request of different healthcare actors.

Maria Middelares Medical Centre continues to focus on short-term care, consultations, the exploration of advanced diagnostic and treatment methods as well as preventive measures through its Sports Medicine Centre and lifestyle medicine services.

As a forward-thinking hospital, we strive not only to provide cures, but also to offer preventative medicine. For years, Healthy.Ghent in Ghent-Bruges, our centre of expertise has been offering a comprehensive approach for anyone intending to adopt a healthier lifestyle, for any athlete who wants to increase his or her physical and mental capacity and for any patient who wants to avoid relapse after a trauma. We want to give people the tools they need to stay healthy for as long as possible, for which we combine the expertise of our nurse, paramedic and medical teams with state-of-the-art technologies and evidence-based medicine. The Health Arena, which showcases health and sports scale-ups on our site, will be a key lever to achieving our ambitions.

Dr Ronny Goethals, Chief Medical Officer of Maria Middelares

Across the street from Maria Middelares/WATT The Health, a brand-new 900 m² Health Arena, a high-tech sports medical centre where sports and well-being are approached and monitored preventively, will be built on the ground floor. It is a concept of In4care non-profit. The Health Arena will be managed by the strategic partners of Health Arena and Maria Middelares.

As the health centre of the future, Health Arena represents a completely new concept in care where healthcare, well-being, living and work are intertwined, creating a healing environment where people are encouraged to adopt a healthy lifestyle through innovative screening, monitoring and coaching. After all, there has been a shift from treatment to prevention and also aftercare. The district primary health centre and the residential care centre also create opportunities to accelerate innovation by testing and demonstrating improvements throughout the care chain.