DISCIPULUS aims at the grand challenge of the “Digital VPH Patient”. The Digital Patient initiative will develop new ways of combining this rich patient information space into a highly visual, coherent, meaningful way, of generating new clinical information and ultimately of creating a “patient avatar” capable of supporting the medical professional by producing new clinical knowledge. The simulation and prediction of various treatment options could help clinicians to decide between options based on patient-specific information.

To realise this vision, DISCIPULUS will develop a sound ICT research and innovation roadmap, informed by consultation and engagement of diverse groups from modellers and technology developers to end users, healthcare providers and regulators. The final goal is to deliver a single, universally useful, all-encompassing Roadmap. To prepare for this, DISCIPULUS will consolidate relevant RTD results by examining critically the state-of-play of both research and innovation throughout the VPH Community. It will document and map outputs central to the successful achievement of the Digital Patient. It will capture and quantify the needs of stakeholder communities, particularly those of clinicians and patients, which are key for the crafting of a successful, usable Digital Patient. A strong impact I anticipated on stressing EU leadership in VPH research, industrial exploitation, quality and sustainability of future healthcare.