The workshop, which is invitation-only, will be organised by empirica and the Work Research Centre (WRC), which jointly carry out the 9-months study. If you are interested in receiving more information, please get in touch with us: workandc...@...irica.com

Agenda and background information: workshop_agenda_info.pdf.

TThe objective of the workshop is to share the results and views with the invited experts, receive their comments and views on these but also opinions and advice on how to further develop the report and recommendations.

Prior to the workshop the study team will provide the invitees with a draft study report. The report will include a description of the objectives, the methodology used and the results achieved from a survey of almost 400 European websites which are provided online in a highly searchable knowledge base, selected case studies, conclusions and preliminary recommendations.

The workshop addresses in particular representatives from the

• European Cultural Contact Points (CCP)
• Owners, and operators of websites and online platform from the cultural sector and
• European Commission.

An online registration facility is available on the CULTUREMAP website at: Culturemap workshop registration

or send an e-mail for registration to werner.ko...@...irica.com.

Study team contact at empirica: werner dot korte at empirica dot com, telephone: +49 228 98530-0

Today's severe economic crisis is likely to affect considerably the capability and willingness of European companies, especially SMEs, to engage in globalisation. In fact, it appears that the more an economy, sector or company is integrated in the global market economy, the harder it has been hit by the recession. The likely outcome will be a backlash in the globalisation process, with companies shying away from engagement in countries outside of Europe, in an attempt to control risk and to deal with market volatility. A retreat of European companies from global collaboration, however, would play havoc with the EU economy's capability to maintain competitiveness and to regain sustainable levels of growth in the future.

It follows that additional efforts will be needed to enable Europe’s companies to fully participate in global business opportunities. Our research argues that, in order to do so, companies need to make effective use of CWE, supported by a wide range of technologies and techniques for virtual collaboration. Examples for CWEs, widely used for global collaboration, include work in virtual teams and Communities of Practice (CoP). The fast progress in ICTs which can support “frictionless” communication and collaboration across time and space can give the impression that virtual, global collaboration is now at everybody’s fingertips. Our research shows, however, that effective implementation of CWEs represents a considerable challenge. Global team work can quickly result in frustration if it is ill-prepared or insufficiently supported by organisational structures and processes.

The study aimed to contribute to a better understanding of the potentials and practical challenges arising from the spread of online collaboration within a business environment which increasingly relies on collaboration at global rather than national or European scale.

Final Report of the NewGlobal study can be downloaded here.

 

Workshop introduction and agenda
NewGlobal project website

Video of live expert interviews: click here

Bonn, 5. October 2010

On 30 September 2010, about 30 experts in innovation policy gathered in Cologne in order to discuss whether and how innovation policy can help to recover faster from economic downturns or to soften the impact of the downturn. The workshop was jointly organised by empirica and Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft Köln Consult GmbH in the context of the “INNO-Grips” project, which is part of the European Commission’s PRO INNO Europe portal.

The recent financial and economic crisis has seriously damaged Europe’s economy. Huge debts have been accumulated to fund the rescue of systemically relevant institutions. Genuinely new growth is needed. Theoretically, economic growth can be driven by innovation. In consequence it is frequently argued that strong investment in innovation during economic downturns is the best response, both for immediate relief and as the route to rapid and sustained recovery from the crisis. The Schumpeterian “Creative Destruction”, well-known in economic theory, predicts that during economic downturns innovation can restructure economies: less productive firms are squeezed out, while highly productive firms succeed. As a result, overall productivity levels rise. Finland’s recovery from the crisis of the early 1990s, when the country was on the verge of bankruptcy, is commonly cited as a prime example for the positive effects of innovation policy in an anti-cyclical conjuncture.

Prior to the workshop, as a basis for the discussion, economists from IW Consult Cologne prepared a policy brief which presents evidence on the links between innovation investments and the business cycle. By and large, they are sceptical that anti-cyclical innovation policy is a promising short-term measure that can deliver economic recovery. They recommend that European innovation policy should rather aim to create a positive and interactive environment for innovation, to encourage strong but fair competition, and to provide substantial support for basic research. However, they also point out that targeted anti-cyclical measures can be important in specific areas, in particular to sustain the innovation activities of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) during economically difficult times. Because SMEs are important drivers of innovation, and because innovative activity of SMEs generates disproportionately more jobs than in large firms, they are highly relevant in this context. The study authors recommend, inter alia, tax-privileges for R&D and innovation expenditures, as this provides a degree of legal certainty, making the support very reliable – a key condition for SMEs.

Apart from these specific areas, and acknowledging its longer-term nature, the study recommends a systematic approach for innovation policy, for instance by closely integrating it with education policy, economic and labour policies.

INNO-Grips is part of the European Commission's PRO INNO Europe portal, a major focal point for innovation policy analysis and cooperation in Europe. It supports policy-makers in adopting appropriate responses to emerging innovation needs, trends and phenomena. INNO-Grips is managed by empirica GmbH, Bonn, based on a service contract with the European Commission, DG Enterprise and Industry. The contract runs until the end of 2012.

The study comprises the following tasks:

1. Recommendation implementation monitoring: Monitoring implementation of the Recommendation on Knowledge Transfer.

2. Public Research Organisation performance: Collecting information on the individual performance of Public Research Organisations and Universities performing research in knowledge transfer.

3. Code of Practice implementation and impact analysis: Analysis of the implementation and impact of the Code of Practice for a sample of at least 200 Public Research Organisations and universities performing research.

4. Stakeholder workshops: Workshops of Public Research Organisations and Universities performing research, industry and other stakeholders.

A website will soon provide more information about the tasks and achievements of the project.

In recent years, ICT has permeated throughout the EU society and economy, to an extent which nobody would have expected only a short time ago. Many observers believe that the fast spread of computer networks, mobile telephony and other ICT is having far-reaching, partly even transformative, implications for European society. Unfortunately, much of what has been said about ICT’s social impacts has not been based on scientific insight but on guesswork, hype and ‘common sense’. It is for this reason that the study on the ‘Social Impacts of ICT’, commissioned by the European Commission, DG Information Society & Media, explored the available empirical evidence about developments in some of the most relevant domains in Europe, and beyond. As there are considerable differences in the extent to which ICT is utilized in different domains, seven such domains have been studied separately in this project:

• Participation and Policy Making
• Education
• Work
• Consumption
• Health
• Community and Family
• Creation and Distributed Innovation. 

Given strong differences are to be expected in the situation between Europe and those other parts of the world in which uptake of ICT is widespread (for example, North America, Japan and the fast developing countries of South-East Asia), the latter were dealt with explicitly in a separate piece of research.

Full version of the report (589 pages):
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/eeurope/i2010/docs/eda/social_impact_of_ict.pdf

The Executive Summary (45 pages):
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/eeurope/i2010/docs/eda/social_impact_of_ict_exec_sum.pdf

Chapter on Impacts of ICT in the area "Community and Family" (88 pages): http://www.empirica.com/publikationen/documents/2010/Community%20and%20Family.pdf

Chapter on Social Impacts of ICT: Comparison between Europe and other parts of the world (61 pages):

Download here (PDF, 5 MB)

http://empirica.com/themen/info_ges/projekte_en.php?taken=aaul2

25 October 2010 - This report authored by Gregor Heilmann and Werner B. Korte of empirica presents an original analysis of the frequency and location of the terms creativity and innovation and relevant synonyms in the obligatory schooling curricula documents from the EU Member States. In total, 37 countries and/or regions were studied and about 1,200 curricula documents were identified and analysed. Given national and/or regional differences in the educational systems and in the status of curricula documents, certain restrictions and limitations had to be taken into account when comparing and drawing inferences from the results. However, a major finding of the study is that Creativity and Innovation – the latter to a much lesser extent– effectively feature in the curricula of primary and secondary education in Europe, though major differences across countries have been observed. The report can be downloaded from the IPTS website: http://ipts.jrc.ec.europa.eu/publications/pub.cfm?id=3701

The VPH NoE is a network of excellence (NoE) funded by the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme. The network is designed to foster, harmonise and integrate pan-European research in the field of i) patient-specific computer models for personalised and predictive healthcare and ii) ICT-based tools for modelling and simulation of human physiology and disease-related processes. The VPH NoE contributes to the Virtual Physiological Human initiative – the methodological and technological framework that, once established, will enable collaborative investigation of the human body as a single complex system.

Coordinated by the University College London and the University of Oxford, the VPH NoE assembles a leading group of universities, institutes and organisations which will, by integrating their experience and ongoing activities in VPH research, promote the creation of an environment that actively supports and nurtures interdisciplinary research, education, training and strategic development.

With a VPH ToolKit – a shared and mutually accessible source of research equipment, facilities and services – empirica’s ongoing developments of highly innovative socio-economic impact assessment methodologies in the VPH projects VPHOP and NMS Physiome will add new value to the broader research community assembled by the VPH NoE. The improved exploitation and business modeling as well as policy guidance inherent to those developments can decisively contribute to the further promoting of the understanding of human physiology and pathology, to derive predictive hypotheses and simulations, develop and test new therapies, with the eventual outcome of better disease diagnosis, treatment and prevention tools for the European healthcare systems.

The VPH Network of Excellence (VPH NoE) is designed to foster, harmonise and integrate pan-European research in the field of i) patient-specific computer models for personalised and predictive healthcare and ii) ICT-based tools for modelling and simulation of human physiology and disease-related processes.

The main objectives of the VPH Network of Excellence are to support the:

• Coordination of research portfolios of VPH NoE partners through initiation of Exemplar integrative research projects that encourage inter-institution and interdisciplinary VPH research;
• Integration of research infrastructures of VPH NoE partners through development of the VPH ToolKit: a shared and mutually accessible source of research equipment, managerial and research infrastructures, facilities and services;
• Development of a portfolio of interdisciplinary training activities including a formal consultation on, and assessment of, VPH careers;
• Establishment of a core set of VPH-related dissemination and networking activities which will engage everyone from partners within the VPH NoE/other VPH projects, to national policy makers, to the public at large;
• Creation of Industrial, Clinical and Scientific Advisory Boards that will jointly guide the direction of the VPH NoE and, through consultation, explore the practical and legal options for real and durable integration within the VPH research community;
• Implementation of key working groups that will pursue specific issues relating to VPH, notably integrating VPH research worldwide through international physiome initiatives.

Finally, by involving clinical and industrial stakeholders, VPH NoE also plans to lay a reliable ground to support sustainable interactions and collaboration between research and healthcare communities.

Useful links:

http://www.vph-noe.eu/home

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Physiological_Human

www.vphop.eu

www.nmsphysiome.eu

 

Contact:

Dr. Rainer Thiel (rainer.th...@...irica.com)

In addition, more than 30 individual reports detailing policy actions and deployment of eHealth applications in Member States and other European countries are available there as well.

The summary report traces European countries’ progress along the goals set out in the eHealth Action Plan. It focuses on the core applications of EHR-like/patient summary and ePrescription systems. It also analyses governance, structural and legal issues as well as policy lifecycle aspects.

Study results show that in virtually all European countries surveyed, political as well as stakeholder interest in eHealth policies, and the planning and implementation of national or regional infrastructures has gained great momentum. This concerns not so much the number of new priority objectives identified, infrastructure elements tackled or pilots run, but rather the overall level of awareness, activities and concrete undertakings. EC as well as Member State initiated activities and co-operations like epSOS or the eHealth Governance Initiative have both significantly contributed to this state of affairs and are witness thereof.

As Pēteris Zilgalvis, Head of the EC’s ICT for Health Unit commented, "Europe is experiencing a strong political momentum to advance eHealth solutions for the benefit of both its citizens and health systems. The recommendations for further actions submitted in this study are based on a thorough analysis of eHealth strategies and implementation activities in European countries as well as the results of a validation workshop in September 2010 in Brussels. ... Now the challenge is to cooperatively address the issues identified."

empirica Communication and Technology Research, with more than 20 years of experience in research on eHealth and telemedicine topics, coordinated the study. The Finnish partner institute THL (National Institute for Health and Welfare, legal specialists from the law firm Time.lex and Professor Denis Protti (University of Victoria, Canada), contributed domain expertise. The study’s communication efforts and final validation workshop were supported by the communication agency EMC Consulting Group.

A host of experts as well as reviewers from the i2010 Subgroup on eHealth contributed their intimate knowledge of the eHealth situation in their respective countries and validated the content of the country reports. This comprehensive collection of country information constitutes a unique resource and important database of up to date evidence on eHealth progress across Europe, which updates and complements the results of the earlier eHealth ERA study of 2007.

By concluding the developments of the VPHOP technology assessment framework, empirica, in collaboration with all clinical and technological partners, delivered the first estimates and results of the impact assessment for the second year of the project. An innovative socio-economic and technology assessment method will continuously and dynamically evaluate the various technologies as they are being developed and refined during the course of the project. The formative layout will help guiding and focussing the research on those options which are most promising. In essence, the technology assessment method has been designed to compare the efficacy and costs of the current standard of care clinical pathway of osteoporosis with the multilayer clinical pathway (diagnosis, prognosis and treatment) developed for VPHOP by the technical partners. This comparison takes into consideration both the improvement of the accuracy in predicting bone fractures and the cost-benefit ratio of the new technology.

In November 2010, the first annual assessment was completed with very encouraging results, indicating that already minor improvements in the technology components and models of the VPHOP pathways will be sufficient to arrive at a positive cost-benefit ratio as compared to the current standard of care. As with most new medical technologies, for VPHOP technologies to benefit osteoporotic patients, extra investments will be necessary. Yet the benefits from the increased predictive accuracy, that is, additional fractures avoided, will exceed the overall costs to clinically employ the VPHOP hypermodel.

While there have been many advances in recent years in prevention, diagnosis, and treatment, osteoporosis continues to be a major health threat for more than 75 million people in Europe, USA and Japan. The biggest concern for individuals with the disease is fractures, and every year osteoporosis causes more than 3,7 million in Europe. Fractures can have a profound impact on quality of life – often leading to pain, disability, loss of independence, and even death. Osteoporosis also takes a huge economic toll on both individuals and society. Fractures from osteoporosis cost the EU nearly €31.7 billion each year and that number is only going to rise as our population ages.With VPHOP, the fight against osteoporosis has a new ally. With the VPHOP socio-economic technology assessment, the project has advanced yet another step. For the remainder of VPHOP, the assessment will be applied twice within the next two years and is intended to contribute to guiding the further research developments – based on actual value for money and realistic impact potentials for the clinical management of one the most devastating conditions in Europe.

The project’s aims are to develop an approach towards a Diagnosis Related Groups (DRG) hospital reimbursement system, draft a national DRG pricing and contracting methodology for inpatient care, pilot the data collection process, train staff and finally implement the system in all hospitals. The project will strongly support the long-term reform and sustainability of healthcare services in Bosnia and Herzegovina by facilitating cost containment and, ultimately, contributing towards improved provider performance.

The new reimbursement method, based on outcomes, will provide information on cost-efficiency of the hospital sector. The DRG system will be applied at the level of secondary and tertiary health care and, extended to the entire B&H hospital sector, using existing local resources trained under this project. “Introducing the DRG system will strongly support the ongoing reform of health systems in B&H. empirica, together with its partners Karol Consulting and Ericsson Nikola Tesla, is proud to be part of this significant endeavour,” noted Dr. Rainer Thiel of empirica. The implementation of the new DRG system and the incentives that come with it are expected to lead to a more effective healthcare system and cost-efficient spending of resources, at the same time achieving better quality of services. The introduction of the DRG system is also considered as a core component of future hospital information systems.

 

Useful links:

Delegation of the European Union to Bosnia and Herzegovina

European Commission, Directorate General Enlargement

European Commission, Directorate General EuropeAid Development and Cooperation

European Union, European External Action Service

European Union Special Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina

 

Contact

Dr. Rainer Thiel (rainer.thiel at empirica.com)

 

According to the latest available official data sources, about 3,680 Qatari nationals aged 15 or older are registered as economically inactive due to disability ("unable to work"), about one third of which are at working age. The share of disabled Qataris who are economically active was 7% for women and 13% for men in 2007 (an improvement against the situation in 1997 when the figures were 3% and 12%, respectively). As in all other countries in the Arab world and beyond, employment rates for people with disabilities are substantially lower than the figures for individuals without disabilities.

It is against this background that ictQATAR - the Supreme Council of Information and Communication Technology and MADA- Qatar Assistive Technology Center in Qatar had asked empirica to develop and present a VOE model and blueprint for selected groups of people with disabilities in Qatar. The overall objective was to help increase the employment levels of people with special needs and disabilities in Qatar by using new forms of work organization and employment based on ICT such as teleworking and virtual office environments.

The implementation guide has been delivered in February 2011. It focuses on three types of disabilities most widespread among Qatar population with special needs, e.g. vision impairment, dyslexia (reading and writing problems), and mobility impairment and builds on the "Implementation Guide for Virtual Office Environments in Qatar" which empirica had developed for ictQATAR ictQATAR in 2010. This guide will become an integral part of the overall VOE implementation guide to help Qatari organizations to implement VOE models for the employment of people with disabilities.

As part of European and global support to stabilise the Greek economy, the so-called Troika of International Monetary Fund (IMF), European Union (EU) and European Central Bank (ECB) has required the Greek Government to advance its national eHealth strategy and develop an implementation plan for ePrescription in the context of a national health information system. It is expected that this will fundamentally contribute to increased efficiency and cost savings by the Greek healthcare system. In four parallel sessions, further details to achieve fast progress on such an extended journey towards a national eHealth infrastructure were discussed. The results of the workshop will form the basis for the next steps to be undertaken.

 

For more information see: http://iap.esa.int/Useful-Resources/ASSIST

The pilot is part of empirica-led project CommonWell and operated by project partners PoZoB and SHOKO in close cooperation with GP's from the region South-East Brabant. Patients in this pilot are equipped with telemonitoring devices to follow-up their health status, and to detect exacerbations at an early stage. The data from blood pressure meters and weight scales are sent to case managers in a call centre by using a wireless communication device. This small computer poses some more general questions to the patient as well, to evaluate how the patient feels on a more subjective level. This information is also transferred to the case managers. The combination of both objective measurements and more subjective evaluation, results in a quite complete picture of the health condition of the patient. In addition, the patients receive a social alarm, to call for help immediately and at all times. In this way the patients and their relatives have one central access point for urgent as well as non urgent social and medical care.

Patients and their social network react positively on the CommonWell service. They feel safer and more secure, because of the daily monitoring and low-threshold contact with the case managers. Quotes from patients show that they perceive the CommonWell service as a useful support to their own efforts of managing their condition and social care needs:

• "I am more involved in taking care of my health."
• "We are glad that our father is being looked after carefully. It makes us worry less and sleep better!"
• "Now I know where to go to with a social question."

In several cases, exacerbations could be detected at an early stage and countered, so that a visit to the hospital was not necessary.

In May 2011, focus group interviews with case managers took place to gather deeper insight into this new role and experience with the integration of medical and social care. The case managers were positive about the project as well. They had the feeling that this project could really detect health problems earlier due to the telemonitoring, and enhance the quality of life and care. In October 2011 GPs and other key informants will be interviewed about their experience with CommonWell. The pilot is scheduled to end in January 2012.

For more information please visit http://www.commonwell.eu/.

 

Dr. Stroetmann described how it is not innovations such as the first appearance of a new product or service in the market, but rather that it is scaling up, as in diffusion across various markets, which is the decisive factor in assuring the competitiveness of our economies.  He emphasised that such considerations need to be employed for innovation and diffusion in health systems and services as well, where new evaluation and assessment methods are desperately required.  The focus needs to shift towards the information needs of various stakeholders and the benefits and costs involved for decision makers when introducing new, complex health services facilitated by advanced ICT systems.  Dr Stroetmann believes that Health Technology Assessment (HTA) methods have so far fallen short of meeting these complex needs. He argued that, unless the requirement for more integrated healthcare service processes is better understood and new HTA methods provide the information needed by the decision makers to prove their eHealth business models, attempts to advance innovations will fail to provide the urgently needed benefits for our health systems.

 

Innovation, and diffusion in particular, are also key matters for the attention of the EU-supported Thematic Network eHealth Innovation - Scaling up eHealth facilitated personalised health services. This network, of which empirica is a key partner, develops ideas for and supports the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing (http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/einclusion/deployment/ahaip/consultation/index_en.htm). It explores how to achieve in the medium-term more patient/person-centred health services, supported and facilitated by enabling innovative eHealth solutions and services. www.ehealth-innovation.eu

The service sector plays an important role in the European and other advanced economies. Services typically account for 70-80% of GDP and have been a major source of growth in recent decades. An INNO-Grips policy brief has explored whether and in what ways innovation policy can contribute to the beneficial development of an innovative service industry in Europe, thereby contributing to growth and, ultimately, well-being.

The value of service innovation is not fully reflected in traditional innovation policy, where technological innovations enjoy a funding bias. Against this general backdrop, the policy brief is rooted in the belief that greater innovation in services can make important contributions to achieving the objectives of the Europe 2020 strategy to achieve “smart, sustainable and inclusive growth”, i.e. enable economic growth without compromising environmental and social objectives.

Unfortunately, as innovation policies that support services still represent a relatively new field, not much evidence of what works and what does not has thus far become available from programme evaluations. Study author Oliver Kovács from ICEG European Center therefore suggested that the European Commission and the Member States should undertake efforts to conduct evaluations of existing policy initiatives. This would facilitate making policy design “more reflexive and calibrated” in the future.

The brief recommends that the most expedient way to encourage innovation in services is to remove (or at least reduce) identified barriers to service innovation, as well as to the related policy design, and to create optimal framework conditions for innovation, rather than to introduce direct support measures for companies or other specific programmes for innovation in services. Innovation policy at the European level should concentrate in particular on optimising the framework conditions for service innovation. This cannot be achieved by innovation policy (in the narrow sense) on its own, but will require a coordinated approach across different policy domains such as economic, competition, education, labour and social policy.

Background

The policy brief has been prepared by ICEG European Center in the context of INNO-Grips - "Global Review of Innovation Policy Studies", a component of the "PRO INNO Europe" innovation web portal (http://www.proinno-europe.eu) of the European Commission. The services of INNO Grips are provided by empirica, based on a contract with the European Commission's DG Enterprise and Industry, in cooperation with ICEG and other research partners. The contract is running until the end of 2012.

The full policy brief can be downloaded from the INNO-Grips website:

http://www.proinno-europe.eu/innogrips/innovation-policy-briefs

Based on this analysis, and with input from European experts on ePrescription legal, technical and semantic challenges, guidelines will be drafted, validated, refined and delivered to the European Commission. Initial results are expected in the second half of 2012. Final results will be presented in the fall of 2013.

Six contributions explored and exemplified the virtualisation of the human body, and its relevance and potential impact on future medicine and healthcare.

Annually, this high level symposium assembles actors from medicine, the sciences, engineering, social sciences and politics to discuss latest developments in high tech medicine in the congenial ambience of a small baroque palace.

Dr. Karl Stroetmann of empirica in Bonn, Germany, presented global developments, ranging from the  beginnings of integrative systems biology and first simulation models 50 years ago to the global Physiome project and the European "Virtual Physiological Human" Initiative. His talk on "The Virtual Physiological Human - from the European Research Initiative to Clinical Practice (The Virtual Physiological Human (VPH) – Von der europäischen Forschungsinitiative zur klinischen Praxis)" (Link: pdf of his slides, see attached) referred to two European Framework Programme 7 (FP7) projects to illustrate the recent progress made towards transferring basic research results to a pre-clinical environment with the perspective, to radically transform in the medium term clinical practice in the medical field of osteoporosis prediction, diagnosis and treatment. These are the Osteoporotic VPH (VPHOP) Project, concerned with multiscale modelling to fight osteoporotic fractures, and its trans-Atlantic sister project, NMS Physiome - Personalised models of the neuromusculosceletal system -www.nmsphysiome.eu/, with its  partners, the: European VPHOP consortium and SIMBIOS - Stanford University -  USA National Center for Biomedical Computing  simbios.stanford.edu/, part of the USA National Institutes of Health  www.nih.gov/ NIH Roadmap for Medical Research.

The  Future eHealth Leaders Summer Camp will take place from 21^st -15^th February 2012 in Cape Town, South Africa.  The camp will introduce participants to eHealth professionals from a number of countries and allow participants to support one another in creating personal development plans that will enhance the leading of eHealth initiatives.

The Future eHealth Leaders Summer Camp provides a unique learning experience outside of familiar settings. It promotes collaboration between diverse countries and regions, mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa and Europe. This provides participants with rich opportunities and inspiration by linking with experienced colleagues who work in vastly different contexts and circumstances.  Applications have already been received from South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Sri Lanka, the United Kingdom and Sweden.

For more information about the Future eHealth Leaders Summer Camp  please go to: http://futureehealthleaders.org/about2012.php.

empirica co-ordinates the Knowledge Transfer Study on behalf of the European Commission's Directorate General Research and Innovation. The purpose of the workshops is monitoring the implementation of the European Commission's Recommendation on intellectual property management in knowledge transfer from 2008 and to discuss related issues. The workshops offered lively forums for discussing country-specific barriers to knowledge transfer, governmental policies and examples of good practice. They revealed the increasing importance of knowledge transfer and intellectual management in Europe at both political level and the level of universities and public research institutes. On average, more than 50 knowledge transfer experts from universities, public research institutes, governmental organisations and business took part in the workshops. Presentations and summeries are availabe on the workshops' websites.

In 2011, empirica organised the following ten workshops:

Berlin, 8 February: Germany.
In co-operation with the Federal Ministry of Education and Research.

Vienna, 10 March: Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein.
In co-operation with the Austrian Ministry of Science and Research.

Maastricht, 10 May: Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg.
In co-operation with the United Nations University, Maastricht.

Gothenburg, 1 June: Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Iceland.
In co-operation with the Swedish Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Communication.

Dublin, 15 July: Ireland, United Kingdom, Malta.
In co-operation with NovaUCD, Dublin.

Tallinn, 6 September: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania.
In co-operation with the Baltic Dynamics 2011 Conference.

Rome, 30 September: Italy.
In co-operation with ProTon Europe, Netval and the Italian Ministry of Economic Development.

Warsaw, 3 November.: Poland.
In co-operation with the Polish Ministry for Science and Education.

Paris, 8 November: France.
In co-operation with the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research.

Porto, 14.11.: Portugal, Spain
In co-operation with the University Technology Enterprise Network Portugal.

In 2012, five further workshops will take place, including further 16 countries in the South-East of Europe. The dates will be announced at the study's website.

The conference was opened by Mary-Ann Schreurs, vice-mayor of the city of Eindhoven who reminded people not only that the things they are doing have to be seen in the wider context of the societal changes of our time. She also emphasised that real action, “real-life service implementation” in the words of some of the conference attendees, is now required because pilot projects are only the first step and “the easy part” on the way to making integrated care a reality for all Europeans. Peter Wintlev-Jensen of the European Commission’s Directorate General Information Society and second opening speaker said that the issue of integrated care, and the role technology can play, is integral part of political and funding activities at the European level already today and considered to become ever more important in the future.

Through a series of excellent key notes and project presentations, conference attendees got a good impression of what is going on in the field of integrated eCare and not least how many different types of activities can be subsumed under this one heading: ranging from integration within the boundaries of health care to integration across various fields of social and health care. “Silos within silos”, as Michael Rigby, Professor emeritus of Keele University named the challenge in his visionary and inspiring keynote. Through a series of three break-out sessions the conference participants could not only listen to what others are doing but contribute their own experiences and views as well. In engaging and far-ranging discussions issues such as service requirements, governance and financing models and impact assessment were further developed, allowing people to position themselves in relation to activities going on all over Europe. A panel discussion in the end not only brought together key stakeholders active in the domain – from IT industry to policy makers and service providers – but also allowed the conference attendees to collect the various strands of discussion and to depart with a good understanding of what is going on today and with an idea of what the future might bring.

The conference was organized jointly by two projects that are currently piloting services for integrated eCare at ten sites all over Europe: CommonWell and INDEPENDENT. Both projects (co-funded under the European Commission’s CIP programme and coordinated by empirica) hoped in that way not only to share some of their experiences but also to create a focal point to bring together those stakeholders that are active in this fledgling field.

Conference presentations and a video will be made available through the conference website in the coming weeks: http://www.beyond-silos.eu/. More information about the two projects can also be found online, please visit http://www.independent-project.eu/ and http://www.commonwell.eu/.

www.eskills-vision.eu

www.eskills-quality.eu

www.smartspaces.eu

It presents and summarizes the achievements of researchers around the globe and from diverse technical backgrounds. They use a wide range of approaches to optimize the use of healthcare technology and integrate such technology into human lives in a way that will benefit all. The book is divided into seven main sections: AAL in the health space; Devices and infrastructure to facilitate AAL; AAL in gerontology; Smart homes as a vehicle for AAL; Applications of AAL in rehabilitation; AAL initiatives; and Novel developments and visions for the area.

Among many other interesting articles it congtains a chapter on AAL markets that is partly based on empirica experiences made in various projects

The book is available in print and online format from IOS press...

"The involvement of real patients early on in the technologies development cycle is extremely important to ensure that research results do not only provide a research added-value but are also translatable into real clinical practice and clinically sustainable workflows. As leader of the clinical workpackage, I am proud to announce the completion of the clinical trial: this is a great achievement for the project!" said René Rizzoli.  "The VPHOP personalised modelling technology is developing a truly personalized and predictive line of attack against the disease" continued Professor Rizzoli "which should considerably improve the accuracy with which we estimate the risk of osteoporotic fractures, by accounting the patient metabolic, anatomical, biomechanical, and neuromotor determinants in an integrated fashion".

 

 

In addition to the baseline clinical data collection, which provided the essential set of clinical data for the technology assessment, each of the clinical centres also implemented an innovative procedure to explore more specific aspects of the various VPHOP modelling technologies. These procedures involve special technologies provided by the industrial partners, such as Actibelt, the smart belt that watches you, or the EOS QT imaging system, the research prototype appositely developed by one of VPHOP industrial partners, EOS Imaging (tm).  Founded by the Physics' Nobel winner G. Charpak, EOS imaging has implemented a complete orthopaedic imaging solution which enables the simultaneous acquisition of two full-body X-rays at very low radiation dose and provides a 3D bone-envelope image of the skeleton in the weight-bearing position. It automatically provides over 100 clinical parameters for pre- and post-operative surgical planning. Based on this commercial product, the research prototype developed in the framework of VPHOP further measure also the bone mineral density. By combining this information with the personalised 3D envelope of the skeleton, the EOS-QT prototype will ultimately allow 3D densitometry mappings to be used in the VPHOP hypermodel.

But while the battery of imaging and sensing technologies (which also includes the high-resolution bone tissue imaging solution for the axial skeleton developed by partner Philips Medical System, and the advanced model morphing technology developed by partner Ansys) is essential to capture all the necessary information for each patient is way sustainable in real-world clinical settings, the core of the project is the hypermodelling technology developed by partner SCS, and by the world-leading predictive models at the body, organ, tissue, and cell level developed in the frame of the project by various academic partners.  The consortium is currently in the process of integrating each modelling technology in the hypermodel framework, an activity, which must be completed before April 2012. 

Then, in the last six months of activity of the VPHOP project, the data of these over 200 patients, and of the many others that are part of the retrospective validation studies also part of the project, will be analysed using the VPHOP hypermodelling technology.

"We are convinced that with its probabilistic, personalised multiscale modelling framework the VPHOP project is setting the scene worldwide in neuromusculoskeletal research and in computational pathophysiology" said Marco Viceconti, coordinator of the VPHOP project.

More information on the VPHOP:

VPHOP or Osteoporotic Virtual Physiological Human is a European osteoporosis research project within the framework of the Virtual Physiological Human initiative. The project is co-funded by the European Union under the 7th Framework Programme of the Directorate General for Research. Until August 2012, the VPHOP research project will develop, validate and deploy the next generation of technology to predict the absolute risk of fracture in patients with low bone mass, thereby enabling clinicians to provide better prognoses and implement more effective treatment strategies (both pharmacological and interventional).

The aim of VPHOP is to develop a multiscale modelling technology based on conventional diagnostic imaging methods that makes it possible, in a clinical setting, to predict for each patient the strength of his/her bones, how this strength is likely to change over time, and the probability that he/she will overload his/her bones during daily life. With these three predictions, the evaluation of the absolute risk of bone fracture will be much more accurate than any prediction based on the external and indirect determinants used in current clinical practice.

Useful links:

http://www.vphop.eu/

http://www.biomedtown.org/biomed_town/vphop/reception/media/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Physiological_Human

The workshop focused on “disruptive” innovation and its implications for competitiveness and innovation policy design. An innovation is “disruptive” if it has a significant impact on a market and on the economic activity of firms in that market. The focus is thus on the impact of an innovations as opposed to its novelty. The term is widely used today in the sense introduced originally as disruptive technology by Christensen’s seminal work “The Innovator’s Dilemma” (1997) which triggered an intensive debate about the concept. However, the debate has, so far, predominantly focused on implications for business strategy – it has hardly ever been discussed from an innovation policy perspective.

The INNO-Grips workshop addressed the issues whether innovation policy  needs to find specific responses to trends with a disruptive impact. The study team presented results of a policy brief which discusses disruptive innovation in the chemical industry, the automotive industry, tourism and the transport and logistics sector. Disruptive innovations in the chemical and automotive industry are seen as key to address global challenges such as climate change and the shift towards renewable energies. As disruptive technology often needs problem-solving know-how from different industries, an innovation system which facilitates open innovation and cross-sector cooperation was seen as very important. The European Technology Platforms could be a means to address this objective.

While the experts agreed on the importance of staying an innovation leader, there was a controversial debate on how to share the related investment risks among stakeholders (including the private and public sector), considering the high degree of uncertainty in disruptive technology development. Typically, it takes 20-30 years after a new technology has been invented until it gets widely used and commercially exploited in products.

Some participants warned against narrowing down the discussion on mechanisms for R&D funding. They argued that innovation policy had other and possibly more relevant instruments to promote disruptive innovation in the best possible way.

Still, a central point in the discussion was the question how important it was to keep R&D activities of companies as much as possible in Europe. Some speakers argued that this must be a central objective for policy, as the commercial exploitation (and thus value creation) –once the new products or processes get into the market– is likely to start in the area where they have been developed. Others took a slightly different view and argued that it makes sense for European companies to conduct part of their R&D in other economies, and that this would strengthen their competitiveness without necessarily hurting the European economy. They compared it to relocating parts of the production process.

A specific suggestion was to put more emphasis on technology road-mapping, in order to create a better empirical basis for taking informed decisions about investments. The European Commission could coordinate and foster such activities.

Background

The workshop was organised by empirica in the context of INNO-Grips - "Global Review of Innovation Policy Studies", a component of the "PRO INNO Europe" innovation web portal (http://www.proinno-europe.eu) of the European Commission. The services of INNO Grips are provided by empirica, based on a contract with the European Commission's DG Enterprise and Industry, in cooperation with ICEG EC and other research partners. The contract is running until the end of 2012.

The workshop proceedings can be downloaded from the INNO-Grips website:

http://www.proinno-europe.eu/inno-grips-ii/workshop/inno-grips-policy-workshop-disruptive-innovation-implications-competitiveness

 

The project implemented and piloted joint-up social and health care services with ICT support in four European countries, reaching more than 19,000 older people as well as family members with caring responsibility and care professionals.

The results of CommonWell, including impact data from the pilot evaluation, detailed service descriptions and guidelines for stakeholders who want to become involved in integrated eCare, are now available online: www.commonwell.eu

 

The timeliness of the chosen topic, presented by empirica researchers Dr. Karl Stroetmann and Dr. Rainer Thiel was underlined by the attendance of more than 50 biocomputational modellers and researchers as well as representatives of RTD funding agencies worldwide. The interest of participants was also reflected in a vivid Q&A session as part of the webinar.

The Virtual Physiological Human (VPH) is a framework of methods and technologies that, once fully established, is expected to make possible the virtual investigation of the human body as a whole. Started in Europe in 2005, it has rapidly grown to become one of the research priorities of the Information and Communication Technologies Programme of the EU Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development, which runs from 2007 to 2013.
In the US, VPH-type research is funded by all the federal agencies that participate in the Interagency Modeling and Analysis Group (IMAG), whose grantees are coordinated in the Multi-Scale Modeling (MSM) consortium.

NMS Physiome is an international project co-funded by the European Commission Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development. empirica is a partner in this consortium, like in the projects VPHOP, VPH-Share and Discipulus.

Please follow this link to download or view the webinar: Assessing Clinical and Economic Benefits of Biocomputational Models

Then join the free ProeHealth 'First Findings' Workshop (complimentary) to be held on Wednesday 9 May in the Finnish Plaza - refreshments served.

ProeHealth Project : Enhancing eHealth Procurement is a study on enhancing procurement of ICT solutions for healthcare. It is commissioned by the European Commission, Directorate General Information Society and Media and carried out by the European Connected Health Alliance and empirica.

The project’s aim is to collect information about good procurement practices in five electronic health records and five telemonitoring initiatives, and produce guidance for European countries.

We are now ready to share the 'first findings' and provide an opportunity to learn from case studies about their experiences and the lessons learnt.

ProeHealth Workshop - Finnish Plaza - 08:30 - 09:30 Wednesday 9th May.

Refreshments available from 08:00 - 08:30.

Register via email to i...@...alliance.com - with a subject heading 'ProeHealth'.
Places are strictly limited so register early (complimentary).

This short but informative video captures in a nutshell what the Digital Patient is about.

Related to the overall VPH initiative are the following four projects, in which empirica is partner:

1. Discipulus is producing a research roadmap for the realisation of the VPH “Digital Patient”.
2. NMS Physiome, partnering with Stanford University, is promoting a more organic cooperation in the development of predicitve, personalised and integrative musculoskeletal medicine.
3. VPHOP is developing, validating and deploying the next generation of technology to fight Osteoporosis.
4. VPH-Share is developing the research infostructure for the VPH community and integrates the optimised services into VPH. 

 

The pilot was part of the empirica-led project CommonWell that developed and piloted integrated eCare services in four European countries. The project came to a successful end in January this year.

Read the article here: http://www.ehealthnews.eu/tunstall/3096-milton-keynes-pioneers-integrated-telehealth-and-telecare-support-for-people-with-long-term-conditions.

For more information about CommonWell, including detailed evaluation results and guidelines for service provision, visit http://www.commonwell.eu.

The video that was taken during the eHealth Business Modelling workshop is now available and may be accessed at http://www.epractice.eu/en/tv/537694.

The workshop will stimulate a discussion starting from the findings of ProeHealth's 10 case studies on procurement of electronic health record and telemonitoring systems. The workshop has five objectives:

• To provide selected procurers a forum for presenting their good practice cases,
• To inform attendees about the draft findings, including the analysed case studies,
• To debate on the set of guidelines for ensuring successful procurement procedures,
• To collect experts' views on those findings, as well as general views, in particular on current and future Commission action in the area of the study,
• To provide a forum for discussion and exchange between procurers and vendors, in order to understand better the issues and challenges they face in communicating with each other.

The workshop will be held on 17th September 2012 at the Invest NI Office, 180 Chaussée d'Etterbeek - 1040 Brussels (near Schuman), commencing at 13:00 and ending at 17:00 with a networking drinks reception. A draft programme is currently available.

Please Register HERE

We look forward to meeting you in Brussels in September.

An international workshop on "Model-driven Prediction and Simulation in Pediatric Cardiology" was hosted in Washington, DC, by the American College of Cardiology ACC, at the Heart House, on 18 June 2012. It was arranged in the context of the EU-US eHealth cooperation in Virtual Physiological Human, as part of the EU-funded project "Sim-e-Child's" final dissemination event. Sim-e-Child provides a grid-enabled pan-Atlantic platform for large scale simulations in paediatric cardiology.

The workshop was attended by cardiologists as well as VPH, bio-medical and bio-engineering experts from both sides of the Atlantic, with presentations by the core technical and clinical team of Sim-e-Child operating on both sides of the Atlantic, with as distinguished discussants Nathan Wilson (Open Source Medical Software Corp.), Andrew Taylor (UCL Institute of Cardiovascular Science), and Sim-e-Child project leads.

Dr. Karl A. Stroetmann, senior research fellow with empirica Communications and Technology Research, was invited by the American College of Cardiology to present on European and global VPH activities, focusing on "ARGOS and the need for a global VPH Cyberinfrastructure". ARGOS has been a trans-Atlantic study to develop concepts for a "Transatlantic Observatory for Meeting Global Health Policy Challenges through ICT-Enabled Solutions". One of three application fields analysed was "Modelling and simulation of human physiology and diseases".

Another ARGOS focus, under the leadership of Dr. Stroetmann and Prof. Dr. Blackford Middleton of Harvard Medical School/Partners Healthcare, was the development of a common approach towards indicators and tools for measuring the adoption, usage and benefits/costs of eHealth. All outcomes were published as policy briefs in Volume 170 "Studies in Health Technology and Informatics - Transatlantic Cooperation Surrounding Health Related Information and Communication Technology".

The aim of the workshop was to stimulate a discussion stemming from the findings of ProeHealth's ten case studies on procurement of electronic health record and telemonitoring systems and the resultant draft guidelines for ensuring successful procurement.
An introduction was provided by Dr. Jaakko Aarnio of the European Commission Directorate General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG Connect). Dr. Aarnio informed participants about the background and objectives of the ProeHealth study and the activities of DG Connect in the field of the study. The Telemonitoring Northern Ireland and Northern Norway EHR good practice case studies were presented by procurers to provide illustrative examples of successful procurement processes and insight into the lessons derived from these cases.
Break out discussion sessions were then held on procurement of either EHR or telemonitoring services. These sessions had three objectives:

• To provide a forum for debate on the set of draft guidelines for ensuring successful procurement procedures,
• To collect experts' views on those findings, as well as general views, in particular on current and future Commission action in the area of the study,
• To provide a forum for discussion and exchange between procurers and vendors, in order to better understand the issues and challenges they face in communicating with each other.

The results of the breakout sessions were presented and discussed in a plenary session. Which was concluded by an overview of the day and a question and answer opportunity.

Pēteris Zilgalvis, Head of Unit for Health and Well Being at DG Connect rounded off the workshop with an outlook and insights into further Commission actions in the field of the study. The workshop then closed with a networking event for all participants.

The results of the workshop and comments gathered will be used to validate the study’s findings and will be implemented in a final study report due in early November.
The ProeHealth Validation workshop was held on 17th September 2012 at the Invest NI Office, 180 Chaussée d'Etterbeek - 1040 Brussels. A programme is available for reference.

All submissions will be reviewed on the basis of relevance, originality, importance and clarity.

 

THEMES

A) Information and Knowledge Management (IKM);

B) Organizational Models and Information Systems (OMIS);

C) Intelligent and Decision Support Systems (IDSS);

D) Software Systems, Architectures, Applications and Tools (SSAAT);

E) Computer Networks, Mobility and Pervasive Systems (CNMPS);

F) Human-Computer Interaction (HCI).

 

TYPES OF SUBMISSIONS AND DECISIONS

Four types of papers can be submitted:

Full paper: Finished or consolidated R&D works, to be included in one of the Conference themes. These papers are assigned a 10-page limit.

Short paper: Ongoing works with relevant preliminary results, open to discussion. These papers are assigned a 7-page limit.

Poster paper: Initial work with relevant ideas, open to discussion. These papers are assigned to a 4-page limit.

Company paper: Companies' papers that show practical experience, R & D, tools, etc., focused on some topics of the conference. These papers are assigned to a 4-page limit.

Submitted papers must comply with the format of Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing Series (see http://www.aisti.eu/worldcist13/springerformat.doc) be written in English, must not have been published before, not be under review for any other conference or publication and not include any information leading to the authors' identification. Therefore, the authors' names, affiliations and bibliographic references should not be included in the version for evaluation by the Program Committee. This information should only be included in the camera-ready version.

All papers will be subjected to a "double-blind review" by at least two members of the Program Committee.

Based on Program Committee evaluation, a paper can be rejected or accepted by the Conference Chairs. In the later case, it can be accepted as the type originally submitted or as another type. Thus, full papers can be accepted as short papers or poster papers only. Similarly, short papers can be accepted as poster papers only. In these cases, the authors will be allowed to maintain the original number of pages in the camera-ready version.

The authors of accepted poster papers must also build and print a poster to be exhibited during the Conference. This poster must follow an A1 or A2 vertical format. The Conference includes Work Sessions where these posters are presented and orally discussed, with a 5 minute limit per poster.

The authors of accepted full papers will have 15 minutes to present their work in a Conference Work Session; approximately 5 minutes of discussion will follow each presentation. The authors of accepted short papers and company papers will have 11 minutes to present their work in a Conference Work Session; approximately 4 minutes of discussion will follow each presentation.

 

IMPORTANT DATES

Paper Submission: November 18, 2012

Notification of Acceptance: December 30, 2012

Camera-ready Submission: January 9, 2013

Payment of Registration, to ensure the inclusion of an accepted paper in the conference proceedings: January 11, 2013.

http://www.aisti.eu/worldcist13/

• the lessons learnt from the 10 good practice case studies,
• guidelines for procurers and decision makers based on these lessons,
• a step-by-step guide to the different phases of procurement for eHealth solutions
• and recommendations to the European Commission on how to further support the investment in, and deployment of eHealth solutions and services.

The final report's findings were validated via an exchange with experts and key players at a dedicated validation workshop. The results of the workshop's discussion have been integrated into the final report and have influenced the guidelines and recommendations. A summary of key workshop discussions can be found in the report's annex.

Solutions for achieving the much needed clarity and orientation support through the ICT education and training ‘jungle’ together with latest evidence on e-skills demand and supply developments and forecasts (2012 – 2020) will be presented. Leading stakeholders will present their views on the importance of e-skills and ICT industry-based training and certification in Europe. Possible interactions with employment agencies and recruitment / staffing industry will be shown.

A European e-Skills Quality label together with its criteria, processes and structures for ICT-based training and certification will be presented.  In addition a prototype of an online e-skills landscape service and support tool for ICT practitioners (helping them in developing targeted career strategies) and key stakeholders like human resources managers (helping them in their job placement, management and recruitment processes) will be demonstrated.

Conclusions, recommendations for actions and governance models will mark the end of the conference.

For further inquiries, please contact

empirica GmbH

Christiane Krupp: Christiane.kr...@...irica.com
Tobias Hüsing: Tobias.hues...@...irica.com
Werner B. Korte: Werner.ko...@...irica.com

Tel.: +49 228 98530-0

Anchoring eHealth in the fundamental rights and European values debate, Dr. Stroetmann attempted to sketch out, where eHealth services should contribute more, in order to make EU healthcare systems sustainable in the long run.

A key item of this discussion is the cost of ageing and end of life care.

The full version of his presentation is available for download here.

Potential topics include but are not limited to

• Requirements and framework conditions: what it takes to make integrated eCare services work
• Case studies: how integrated eCare services work
• Business models: how to make integrated eCare a viable reality
• Governance: how decision makers can enable integrated eCare
• Impacts: costs and benefits of integrated eCare to the individual and to society
• Evaluation methods: how to measure impacts of integrated eCare

 

The Call for Chapters can be downloaded here...

Interested to submit a chapter? Please contact Ingo Meyer ingo.meyer[at]empirica.com or Sonja.Müller sonja.mueller[at]empirica.com.

Further success stories will probably follow once the evaluation of the pilots is completed.

EHTEL, together with associations representing telehealth users and industrials, are starting to collect such stories with the view to consolidate, publish them and present them to politicians in support of a message titled “Telehealth in support to integrated care”.

The Dublin success story can be downloaded here.

During the INDEPENDENT recruitment period the pilot site team in Trikala had the chance to talk with many family carers about their personal situation and their particular needs. We found that many carers have a high need for psychological support, especially those who are caring for a relative with cognitive impairments. Many people said that it is extremely hard to provide daily care to an older person with depression or cognitive impairment where at the same time you are facing a financial crisis because public allowances are cut down and unemployment rates or increasing. Carers thus respond very positively to the possibility to be able to get timely support from a psychologist thanks to the INDEPENDENT service.

After the first 3 sessions already many of the carers show significant progress and their stress and depression symptoms such as headaches, panic attacks, hopelessness that are very often associated with their caring responsibility reduce significantly. The psychological support helps them to understand the cause of their symptoms and offers them techniques to better cope with their situation as a carer. Last but not least the INDEPENDENT service offers them a sense of belonging which is very important since they often felt very isolated from the local community and cut off from society at large. The presence of an organised team of professionals who can easily be reached gives them back their lost sense of communication, support and understanding.

Early results have shown that the project is delivering added value with a social care and inclusion aspect to what is essentially a health tool. In addition to integrating health monitoring into a social care setting, one of the most unexpected results of the system use at this time in the project are the social interactions which have come from the users themselves. A group of users have come together to use one of the MUDs as a group activity. Within the group are people who have visual and hearing impairment as well as others with mobility and dexterity disabilities. Some of these users would not be able to utilise the MUD as an individual but as a collective they assist each other in the areas that they struggle. A person who has had a stroke can still touch the screen and answer the questions but struggles to put the blood pressure cuff on so is assisted in that by a person who is not physically impaired. Another person who has sight difficulties can do the physical monitoring but a friend helps by touching the screen to answer the questions. This is an encouraging example of peer to peer support and one which was not envisaged at any point previously. As a group they are also making the use of the system ‘their Friday morning outing’ which has become a ‘normal’ part of the week and is now something they look forward to. They even have mini competitions to see who has the best oxygen saturation levels or who has put on a pound or lost a couple.

Learn more and visit http://www.independent-project.eu.

The groups consisted out of health care insurers, care professionals, technology providers, system integrators, researchers, service providers, policy makers, and so on. The diverse background of workshop participants, their field experience and their view on care and technology resulted in lively and interesting discussions. Outcomes from these workshops will be used to frame the guidelines for integrated eCare, and to set up the exploitation workshops in the various pilot countries.

Read all about it in the newsletter. Now available in PDF and accessible TEN text format.

“For us this means on the one hand a recognition of our long years of activity in the field, but also a kind of humbling reminder to keep striving for high quality work”, says Lutz Kubitschke, Senior Consultant and co-ordinator of several of empirica’s projects in the field. He and his team can look back to years of work and a large number of projects and studies focussing on the development of PHS services and the better understanding of the European market place. “I have always been a strong believer in EU-wide collaboration, only this allows us to make the concept of personal health systems a reality”, is how Veli Stroetmann, Senior Research Fellow and one of empirica’s leading eHealth experts, sees things. empirica has been active in ICT for health and ICT for older people since its founding in the 1980s and can look back to more than 50 projects and studies in the field.

You can read more about the PHS Foresight study here: http://www.phsforesight.eu/.

The full report [PDF] is available from here: http://www.phsforesight.eu/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/PHS_D1.1_Report_20130228.pdf