Archive International Projects

For more information about the projects that have ended, contact intl@medcom.dk or 6543 2030.

 

 

Baltic eHealth (www.Baltic-eHealth.org)

 

The purpose of the Baltic eHealth project was to link the national health networks in Denmark, Norway and Sweden with the regional networks in Estonia and Lithuania into one common Baltic health network (BHN) in order to create new options within the health services in the area. Today, due to the success of the project and the pilots, knee images are being sent cross-border from the Funen Hospital in Denmark to East-Tallinn Central Hospital in Estonia and to Vilnius University Hospital in Lithuania on a daily basis. In June 2008, the Baltic eHealth project received the prestigious Computer World Honors Program Laureate Medal.

 

 

Better Breathing (www.BetterBreathing.org)

 

Better treatment and improved quality of life for chronic COPD patients.

Four pilot hospitals in Denmark, Spain, Wales and Northern Norway have clinically tested different technical solutions and have evaluated solutions concerning the aim of improved quality of life for COPD patients, release of resources, and optimised course of treatment. Results of the project indicated that there are great advantages in ICT solutions in connection with COPD patients and that it was possible to reach the objectives. Both patients and healthcare professionals were very satisfied with the way to receive and provide services – whether it concerned continuation of hospital treatment in the home, rehabilitation over a distance, or support of healthcare professionals by specialists. All in all, improved quality of life and better treatment of patients were obtained. Satisfaction has been so great that several pilot sites have continued using the solutions in day-to-day operation and offer treatment via ICT to COPD patients. Also, the project has clarified advantages for health-ICT suppliers and contributed to the establishment of two companies in Denmark and Spain, respectively.

 

 

BREAST HEALTH (www.crossborderbreasthealth.net)

 

Optimisation of cooperation across the border between Denmark and Germany concerning breast cancer.

Breast Health was an INTERREG IV A project with the aim of creating cross-border cooperation in prevention, examination, and treatment of breast cancer in the Region of Southern Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. The main focus of the Breast Health project was to create a mutual foundation for the construction of a Cross-border Breast Cancer Centre. This centre is to advance cross-border medical services in prevention and treatment of breast cancer. The project brought together 13 partners, consisting of two Danish partners, MedCom and the Region of Southern Denmark, and 11 German partners. MedCom's task was to introduce the Danish Health Data Network to the German partners and to assist in administrative reporting for the Danish partners. The project lasted 18 months.

 

 

CALLIOPE (www.calliope-network.eu)

 

CALL for InterOPErability: creating a European coordination network for eHealth interoperability implementation

The CALLIOPE project brought together 27 organisations from 15 European countries and was set up by six health administrations, 13 competence centres, and nine EU level professional organisations representing healthcare professionals, patients, and payers. The project was part of the epSOS project and represents a targeted effort aiming to establish an appropriately governed, composed, and structured open forum with the focal goal to support the implementation of interoperable eHealth solutions in close collaboration with key stakeholders, including users, industry, and payers. The project has been working on the establishment of a network of countries not yet a part of epSOS but wishing to be so. A special cooperation between epSOS and CALLIOPE, called CALLepSO, has been established in order to function as a "phase-in intermediary" for the new candidate countries. MedCom was a partner in the CALLIOPE project.

 

 

DREAMING (www.dreaming-project.org)

 

The DREAMING project was a European pilot project with Danish participation from the Region of Southern Denmark and Langeland municipality. The project tested AAL (welfare technology) home monitoring solutions for the measuring of vital as well as environmental factors in the homes of chronically ill elderly citizens. Furthermore, the project tested health related work and other types of interaction between citizens, health personnel, relatives, and friends via video conference on the citizens’ own TV.

The project was a clinical randomised controlled trial, where one group of citizens received treatment and care via home monitoring equipment as well as video conference, whereas another group of the same size received normal treatment and care from health professionals without the use of AAL technology. The citizens included in DREAMING suffered from at least one of three diseases: COPD, heart failure, and diabetes. The participants were at least 65 years old and did not suffer from dementia.

The region of Southern Denmark handled the project management, dissemination, and writing of reports. Furthermore, the region had the role of ensuring a stable roll-out with the pilot partner, Langeland Municipality.

The project was financed by the EU programme ICT-PSP, objective 2.2 – ”ICT for ageing well” and consisted of 13 partners from six different EU countries (Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Sweden). The coordinator of the project was Tesan Televita SRL from Italy and the project was financed with 2.77 million Euro.
 

 

GAP (www.gaptheproject.eu)

 

GAP, “Guard, Anticipation and Prediction”, was a project assessing the need for a predictive solution able to produce alarms at EU level, in order to respond and recover efficiently and effectively both during and after threats such as terrorism, (organised) crime, pandemics, natural disasters, and major industrial accidents or technological disasters. The project vision was to create a generic model establishing international standards in case of health related threats on a European level. The generic model was also to establish standards for future research and international policies in this area. Assessment for the need of developing this generic model has been accomplished. MedCom International represented Region of Southern Denmark in the project, which began 1 January 2008 and ended in December 2008.

 

 

HEALTH OPTIMUM I.D. (www.HealthOptimum.info)

 

Optimisation of health services by means of telemedicine in five regions of Europe – including the Region of Southern Denmark

The Health Optimum I.D. project was a two-year project, which ended on 31 August 2009. Hereafter, it was handed over to the Region of Southern Denmark where it has been implemented. The project brought together five regions in Europe (Denmark, Italy, Spain, Sweden, and Romania) and the main objective was to support already implemented telemedicine initiatives in order to stem increasing expenses within the healthcare system. Furthermore, the project has initiated communication across borders in order to spread valuable experience among all participating countries.
During the project period, nine projects have formed part of the Health Optimum project: Tele-neurosurgery, Tele-coronary arteriography, Tele-thrombolysis, Tele-endocrinology, Tele-cardiology, Telemedicine preparation for operation, Tele-dialysis as well as Tele-alcohol rehabilitation and Telemedicine discharge conference. A report has been completed describing the results in the Region of Southern Denmark, as well as how telemedicine solutions may be implemented in an organisation. This can be obtained by contacting the office.
 

 

HEALTHY GROWTH

 

Healthy Growth (SUND VÆKST) was a project focusing on regional development as well as inter-sectorial co-operation. Thus, all seven sub-projects in the Healthy Growth project consisted of public as well as private partners.

MedCom was the project manager of two of the sub-projects.

In the sub-project ”Assistive robot technology for rehabilitation of apoplexy patients”, the private company Entertainment Robotics, OUH (Odense University Hospital) Svendborg, and the neuro-rehabilitation department in Ringe co-operated in the development of a robot technology tool for the rehabilitation of apoplexy patients. An additional partner was Svendborg Municipality which contributed to the inter-sectorial collaboration.

Through the use of new IT and sensor based tools, the project worked to develop new methods and processes for the rehabilitation of apoplexy patients.

In the sub-project ”Home treatment of COPD patients supported by IT”, the private company Medisat, OUH (Odense University Hospital) Svendborg, and OUH Odense co-operated to advance the development of telemedicine treatment of COPD patients. Further partners were Svendborg, Faaborg-Midtfyn, and Odense Municipality, who contributed to the intersectorial co-operation.

The Healthy Growth project ran concurrently with the roll-out of the ”COPD suitcase” at OUH Odense and OUH Svendborg Hospital.

The project was financed by the European Regional Development Fund.
 

 

ICT and Ageing Users - Markets and Technologies

 

European mapping and analysis of the market for information communication technology in elderly care.

The primary aim of the study was to identify existing market barriers, which hinder the up-take of technologies, and to identify recommendations for actions with a focus on demand and market potential in Europe. The study guided the work of national correspondents in gathering country specific information about market barriers and ethical issues in relation to three application domains: ageing well at work, ageing well in the community and ageing well at home. Another purpose of the study was to analyse the ethical issues that rise in relation to the three application domains mentioned above.

National data gathering was therefore necessary in the collection of documentation on the matter of market barriers and their importance on a national scale. This was relevant in the identification of good practice cases, in the collection of documentation on the matter of ethical issues, and in identification of good practice cases in relation to the three application domains mentioned earlier. This was done via desk-research together with semi-structured interviews with relevant experts from the field. This work was divided into two data collection efforts – one in 2008 and one in 2009. The project was led by Empirica Gesellschaft für Kommunikations- und Technologieforschung GmbH.

The first study in Denmark was made by MedCom International during the summer of 2008. The second was made by MedCom International during the summer of 2009. This follow-up built on the findings and experiences drawn from the first data collection effort and focused on implementation projects in four areas:
- Telecare – implemented ambient assistant living technologies that support elderly citizens to live longer and more independently in their own homes.
- Telehealth – implemented telemedicine projects that support age-induced, and thereby often chronic, diseases.
- Telecare and telehealth combined – implemented projects where ambient assistant living projects are combined with telemedicine to make life easier and better for elderly citizens.
- Smart Homes – implemented projects that have resulted in intelligent homes aimed at elderly care.
 

The primary objective of the second study was still to identify existing market barriers hindering the up-take of technologies and to identify recommendations for action focusing on covering needs and market potential in Europe. The second wave merely focused more on technologies that are ready for implementation.

 

ICT for Health (http://www.ictforhealth.net/)

The ICT for Health project looks into how to increase the focus on eHealth in the Baltic Sea Region. In addition to the work done to promote eHealth, the activities in ICT for Health include pilot projects in self monitoring of heart patients, education of health professionals and patients suffering from chronic diseases as well as the development of a multilingual health portal.

The Region of Southern Denmark is mainly involved in the documentation of Good Practice in connection with the use of ICT in the health sector with a special focus on chronically ill elderly citizens.

Work Packages:

Project management and administration
Communication and information
Strategies to improve the social capacity of citizens and medical professionals to utilise eHealth technologies
Empowerment of citizens with chronic heart disease through lifelong learning and self-monitoring
Education for health care professionals and citizens with chronic diseases to utilise eHealth technology
Enabling mobile citizens with chronic diseases to document health data in a multi-lingual personal health portal

The project is financed by EU’s Baltic Sea Region Programme 2007-2013 (The European Regional Development Fund) and consists of 19 partners from 8 different countries in the Baltic Sea Region. The Lead Partner is University of Applied Sciences in Flensburg and the project is financed by 3.65 m euro. 

 

Interpretation Service

The project focused on optimising interpreting services in the Region of Southern Denmark. The project was supported by Cisco Systems. The aim of the project was to test whether or not telemedicine can assist in creating a more flexible and effective interpreting service to patients and their relatives - thus improving the clinical quality of the interpretation. The interpretation service was pilot-tested during a three-month period in the spring of 2008 at three participating hospitals in the Region of Southern Denmark. The project ended 30 June 2008. An evaluation  was published at the end of the summer of 2008. 
 

PERSONA

 

The PERSONA project worked to ensure that elderly citizens can live in their own homes and in their own communities as long as possible by the aid of IT support.
PERSONA was a research and development project under the sixth framework programme bringing together 20 partners from Europe. The purpose of the PERSONA project was to assist elderly and disabled people in living safely in their own homes by the use of welfare technologies. The core purpose of the project was to improve quality of life for the elderly by means of welfare technology and PERSONA instruments. Among the 20 project partners, two were Danish: the Region of Southern Denmark and Odense Municipality.
Odense Municipality contributed to the project by allowing a senior citizen home to be used as a test site.
 

 

R-Bay (www.R-Bay.org)

 

Establishment of an eMarketplace for the exchange of radiological services.

The purpose of the project was to establish a secure platform for the exchange of radiological tasks and expert knowledge across European national borders. The project involved all parties – from hospitals, IT suppliers, security experts, legal experts to market and business case experts. R-bay ended in May 2009. The project obtained great attention from, among others, the European Commission, the radiological clinical companies and suppliers (both IT/system suppliers and suppliers of health services) because of its new way of thinking about business models for the radiological area. This means going from a point-to-point traditional teleradiology to a many-to-many access of radiological services, resulting in increased flexibility and simpler working procedures. The individual partners formulated plans for regional or national dissemination and several are in the process of establishing a national R-Bay solution, e.g. in Estonia. The Region of Southern Denmark and Odense University Hospital are working on continuing the project in their own way and are still very interested in co-operation across national borders, as the problem with the lack of specialists in radiology is great.

Welfare Tech Region (http://en.welfaretech.dk/)

Welfare Tech is a hub for the development, dissemination, and implementation of welfare technology in the social and health care sector funded by the project Welfare Tech Region.

Through private-public business development, knowledge sharing, and interdisciplinary co-operation, the members of Welfare Tech Region work to develop new technologies and products that can increase the quality and productivity in the public sector, and at the same time create new jobs and export possibilities in the private sector.

MedCom is a partner in the following sub-projects of Welfare Tech Region:
 

• Project development
• Network and conferences
• International attraction and relations

The project is financed by the European Regional Development Fund.

 

 

WHO / European eHealth Consumer Trends Survey

 

European survey of citizens’ use and position on the Internet with regards to health and the healthcare system

During the project period, two surveys were carried out in each country. The first took place during the fall of 2005 – the second comparative survey took place in the spring of 2007. During the project period, the surveys were published in the medical periodicals of the individual countries – as well as international periodicals for the overall European study (BMC Public Health – 2007,7:53). The Danish survey conducted in 2005 showed that many Danes regularly used the Internet to find health information. However, the GP was still the primary source for health information. Rather, Danes use the Internet as a supplement to the GP and many – especially women – use the information from the Internet in the dialogue with their GP. In Denmark, there is an increasing demand for solutions that allow people to contact the different players in the healthcare sector. The survey was repeated in 2007 in order to examine the development in the use of the Internet for health purposes. In this new survey, it is worth noticing that 83% of all men and 74% of all women are in favour of electronic equipment for monitoring their health in their own home. An article concerning these results was published in the Journal of the Danish Medical Association in October 2007. This article juxtaposed these new results with the survey in 2005 in order to spot any tendencies in the Danes' view on telemedicine. In this project MedCom International represented the Region of Southern Denmark.