DigitalHealthEurope

Project information: 

• Full title: DigitalHealthEurope
• Duration: 30 months (1 January 2019 - 30 June 2021)
• Status: Ongoing
• Funding programme: Horizon 2020 – the European Union Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (Grant agreement ID: 826353)

What will the project do? 

• Digital Health Europe (DHE) is a Horizon 2020 initiative within the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation.  The objective of the project is to provide comprehensive, centralised support to the digital transformation of health and care (DTHC) priorities of the Digital Single Market.
• The partners bring a broad range of collective knowledge and expertise, originating from the longstanding leadership and engagement in the whole spectrum of activities, from interoperability and standards to health service innovation and from the technical to the policy level. The project will support large-scale deployment of digital solutions for person-centred integrated care.

Collaborative Platforms: 

• CITIZENs’ secure ACCESS to and sharing of health data across borders;
• BETTER DATA to advance research, disease prevention and personalised health and care;
• Digital tools for CITIZEN EMPOWERMENT and person-centred care.
• To achieve these three priorities, the project work plan offers two forms of support.
  • Support to large scale deployment of digital solutions for person-centred integrated care
  • Support to DTHC innovation through collaboration platforms
• These three priorities of DHE project translate into individual collaboration platforms:
  • CITIZEN ACCESS: understand which good practices are used in each country that are related with citizens’ secure access to and sharing of health data, and thus facilitate the adoption of a European electronic health record exchange format.
  • BETER DATA: improve the quality of healthcare systems around Europe, help public health services to better target the most important societal needs in the most effective ways, and accelerate research.
  • CITIZEN ENPOWERMENT: facilitate the development and wider use of digital tools for citizen empowerment and for person-centred care in Europe. (Led by EPF)

What are the expected outcomes?

• The aspiration is a health-promoting Europe, free of preventable CD, premature death and avoidable disability could be possible. Initiatives on CD should build on four cornerstones: health promotion and primary prevention as a way to reduce the burden of CD; patient empowerment; tackling functional decline and quality of life as the main consequences of CD, and making health systems sustainable and responsive to the aging of our populations associated with the epidemiological transition (an increase in incidence of CD and extended life expectancy) whose consequence is an increasing prevalence of CD.

What is EPFs role?

• EPF will be leading work package 6 –setting up and managing a collaboration panel between citizens/patients and healthcare providers. The objectives of this section of the project can be summarised as follows:
  • Establish a functional collaboration platform on key aspects of digital solutions for person-centred integrated care;
  • Identify barriers and enablers related to the procurement, adoption, trust and integration into care pathways of digital solutions that strengthen the interaction between citizens/patients and healthcare providers;
  • Explore the possibilities of exploiting real world data and data reported by patients to improve quality of care and health management (incl. feedback from patients) and build on patient empowerment;
  • Provide an instrumental contribution to the implementation of EU policy on the third DTHC priority.

Consortium

• A Horizon 2020 initiative, DHE brings together over 17 associated and collaborating partners from e.g. national and regional departments of health and research institutions, representing 10 European countries. The partners will collaborate to bring a broad range of collective knowledge and expertise, originating from their leadership and engagement in the whole spectrum of activities, from interoperability and standards to health service innovation, from the technical to the policy level. They will form a common vision of EU coordination and support for DTHC beyond 2020

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