Self-management of health and disease and patient empowerment supported by ICT

Specific challenge: Empowering citizens and patients to manage their own health and disease can result in more cost-effective healthcare systems by enabling the management of chronic diseases outside institutions, improving health outcomes, and by encouraging healthy citizens to remain so. Several clinical situations would be prevented or better monitored and managed with the participation of the patient him or herself. Care sciences may complement the medical perspective without increasing the cost.

This requires research into socio-economic and environmental factors and cultural values, behavioural and social models, attitudes and aspirations in relation to personalised health technologies, mobile and/or portable and other new tools, co-operative ICTs, new diagnostics, sensors and devices (including software) for monitoring and personalised services and interventions which promote a healthy lifestyle, wellbeing, mental health, prevention and self-care, improved citizen/healthcare professional interaction and personalised programmes for disease management.

Support for knowledge infrastructures is also required. Implementation of programs or applications for different target populations to capture gender- and age-dependent differences in health, behaviour and handling of devices is encouraged.

This topic is a continuation of PHC 26 – 2014) giving more and different opportunities to develop solutions and services for self-management of health and diseases.

Scope: Solutions should be developed and tested with the use of open innovation platforms such as large scale demonstrators for health and service innovation. Gender and ethical issues should be duly considered. Proposals should involve health procurers and support them in their efforts to lower costs, and reduce difficulties associated with limited numbers of health professionals by utilising the capacity and potential of the patient as a co-producer of health. Proposals should use pre-commercial procurement to maximise the engagement of innovation in healthcare organisations following the community building and road-mapping activity in the seventh framework programme call 10 CSA on innovation in health procurement[1].

Proposals should aim to empower patients to manage their pre-existing conditions. Health management will be addressed holistically, including healthy lifestyle interlinked with disease management, placing the patient in the centre and putting increased emphasis on health education, secondary prevention and self-management of individual conditions, including co-morbidities.

Proposals should address all of the following elements a) personalised guidance to patients based on their profiles and the use of wearable/portable devices and improved individual/healthcare-professional interaction, b) engagement of patients as active members in managing their diseases, in particular addressing chronic diseases, co-morbidities, treatment adherence, rehabilitation, self-diagnostics and self-care and c) decision support systems interoperable and/or maintaining integrity with electronic health records.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of between EUR 3 and 5 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

Expected impact:

• Improving the participation of the patient in the care process.
• Improving the management of a disease by reducing the number of severe episodes and complications.
• Increasing the level of education and adherence of individuals, patients and care givers related to application of ICT for personalised care.
• Improved interaction between patients, their relatives, providers of health-, social-, and informal care givers.
• Strengthened evidence base on health outcomes, quality of life, care efficiency gains and economic benefits from the use of ICT in new care models.
• Reinforced medical knowledge with respect to efficient management of comorbidities.
• Increased confidence in decision support systems for disease/patient management.
• Involvement of health care providers/authorities with increased commitment in the deployment of innovative services empowering the patient.

Type of action: Pre-commercial procurement co-fund actions.

[1] http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/page/call_SEVENTH FRAMEWORK PROGRAMME;eSeventh Framework Programme_SESSION_ID=QJb3S2ZR4c5R8YGRdcXg6sMvRGhp5MnfdJ6hwS2s2Zdph80JKMYL!1216744746?callIdentifier=SEVENTH FRAMEWORK PROGRAMME-ICT-2013-10&specificProgram=COOPERATION#wlp_call_SEVENTH FRAMEWORK PROGRAMME