Strengthening primary health care in Europe with digital solutions

This article provides an in-depth analysis of digital transformation in European primary healthcare (PHC). It assesses the impact of digital technology on healthcare delivery and management, highlighting variations in digital maturity across Europe. It emphasizes the significance of digital tools, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, in enhancing accessibility and efficiency in healthcare. It discusses the integration of telehealth, remote monitoring, and e-health solutions, showcasing their role in patient empowerment and proactive care. Examples are included from various countries, such as Greece's ePrescription system, Lithuania’s adoption of remote consultations, Spain’s use of risk stratification solutions, and theNetherlands’ advanced use of telemonitoring solutions, to illustrate the diverse implementation of digital solutions in PHC. The article offers insights into the challenges and opportunities of embedding digital technologies into a multidisciplinary healthcare framework, pointing towards future directions for PHC inEurope

Project Macmillan Exploratory Report

The Project Macmillan Exploratory aimed to discover how asthma care could benefit from augmented reality by reviewing existing evidence (patient surveys, professional feedback, etc.) and discussing the future direction of asthma treatment, including how to further develop adherence behaviour

Medicine Adherence & Augmented Reality

The purpose of this Exploratory is to scrutinise, develop and focus a project aiming to deliver multimedia information to the enquiring patient from trusted sources, using mobile phone based augmented reality technology to link this information to medicines, packaging, and pharmacy bags or support literature. This project ultimately aims to prove that such a platform would improve adherence behaviour

Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service

Presentation for the Scottish national blood transfusion service

A new culture of innovation in Scotland - the case for Digital Health & Care Institute : an example of a new innovation model for the delivery of digital health and care in Scotland

Following the spending review of 2011, the Scottish Government decided that all the public service organisations should have a role to play in growing the Scottish economy. To that effect, £124m were invested for setting up eight Innovation Centres in Scotland to create sustainable and internationally ambitious open-communities bringing together universities, academics, research institutes, businesses, health and care professionals and providers, third sector organisations and citizens, as well as the Scottish Government to deliver economic growth and other benefits for Scotland. This good practice case drills into the Digital Health and Care Institute (DHI) set up by a consortium formed by the University of Edinburgh, Glasgow School of Arts and the NHS24. The remit of the DHI is to transform the way health and care is delivered within Scotland by constructively disrupting health and care provision through idea generation, innovating the right products and services and establishing a new digital health and care economy for Scotland. The DHI operations are based on a unique triple-helix innovation model, which consists of an Exploratory (helping to define an area of investigation or innovation), Laboratory (product design and development) and Factory (moving a known solution towards a marketable product). Since opening its doors in October 2013 the DHI has supported and facilitated nearly 90 research and development projects in different phases of maturity

Developing a "responsible assessment" system to improve research impact: a case study from Catalonia

Many lessons can be drawn from the burgeoning discourse on research impact assessment. Paula Adam, Maite Solans-Domènech, Núria Radó-Trilla, Toni Dedeu and Albert Barberà explain how they have applied these to the design of a health research assessment system in Catalonia, one that helps to embed impact from the early stages of a research programme. Emphasising the importance of values, leadership, culture, and empowerment, the SARIS system is focused on all research stakeholders and promotes the idea of “responsible” assessment, underpinned by openness, analysis, and engagement

The european primary care monitor: structure, process and outcome indicators

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Scientific research has provided evidence on benefits of well developed primary care systems. The relevance of some of this research for the European situation is limited.</p> <p>There is currently a lack of up to date comprehensive and comparable information on variation in development of primary care, and a lack of knowledge of structures and strategies conducive to strengthening primary care in Europe. The EC funded project Primary Health Care Activity Monitor for Europe (PHAMEU) aims to fill this gap by developing a Primary Care Monitoring System (PC Monitor) for application in 31 European countries. This article describes the development of the indicators of the PC Monitor, which will make it possible to create an alternative model for holistic analyses of primary care.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A systematic review of the primary care literature published between 2003 and July 2008 was carried out. This resulted in an overview of: (1) the dimensions of primary care and their relevance to outcomes at (primary) health system level; (2) essential features per dimension; (3) applied indicators to measure the features of primary care dimensions. The indicators were evaluated by the project team against criteria of relevance, precision, flexibility, and discriminating power. The resulting indicator set was evaluated on its suitability for Europe-wide comparison of primary care systems by a panel of primary care experts from various European countries (representing a variety of primary care systems).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The developed PC Monitor approaches primary care in Europe as a multidimensional concept. It describes the key dimensions of primary care systems at three levels: structure, process, and outcome level. On structure level, it includes indicators for governance, economic conditions, and workforce development. On process level, indicators describe access, comprehensiveness, continuity, and coordination of primary care services. On outcome level, indicators reflect the quality, and efficiency of primary care.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>A standardized instrument for describing and comparing primary care systems has been developed based on scientific evidence and consensus among an international panel of experts, which will be tested to all configurations of primary care in Europe, intended for producing comparable information. Widespread use of the instrument has the potential to improve the understanding of primary care delivery in different national contexts and thus to create opportunities for better decision making.</p