Cancer intelligence access across Europe
Cancer is responsible for more deaths globally than malaria, AIDs and tuberculosis put together. Research in this area is extremely splintered and communication suffers as a result. There is a need for a centralised or integrated portal that provides reliable data on cancer. The EUROCANCERCOMS (Establishing an efficient network for cancer communication in Europe) project worked on streamlining resources and access to information for cancer health professionals, policymakers and patients. They aimed to provide proof-of-concept on a unique platform to offer cancer intelligence. The project comprised major European cancer community organisations and e-communication technical experts from a wide range of scientific and clinical societies and disciplines. They carried out systematic studies on all aspects of e-cancer information space, including analysis of novel architecture, applications and tools. Project members studied several aspects of cancer communication ranging from open access to the state of research and development communication within academic cancer surgery. Besides major policy studies and reports, researchers also assessed the impact of bias and influence of unpublished research data on cancer communication. They carried out extensive surveys of cancer communities that included patients and health care professionals. A special area of focus was developing cancer clinical guidelines. EUROCANCERCOMS utilised two text-mining techniques to understand the relation between genes and melanoma. This approach proved quite effective in dealing with information overload. Researchers combined all the findings from the studies, surveys and analysis and launched eCancerHub, a novel social media platform for EU cancer communication. This platform enables communication between patients, health care professionals, scientists and policymakers. Project activities demonstrated the feasibility of using social media and Web 2.0 technologies to integrate and facilitate cancer communication. Researchers also identified the key requirements for an effective social networking system for cancer information in Europe. Such a model could ultimately be applied to other areas of health care.
Keywords
Cancer, health care, cancer communication, clinical guidelines, eCancerHub
