DigitalHealthEurope will provide comprehensive, centralised support to the digital transformation of health and care (DTHC) priorities of the Digital Single Market. The partners bring a broad range of collective knowledge and expertise, originating from the longstanding leadership and engagement in the whole spectrum of activities, from interoperability and standards to health service innovation and from the technical to the policy level. The project will support large-scale deployment of digital solutions for person-centred integrated care by identifying, analysing, and facilitating the replication of highly impactful best practices, utilising the consortium’s exceptional expertise on knowledge management and impact assessment (EIP on AHA repository of innovative practices, MAFEIP), twinning schemes, and mobilisation of stakeholders. A marketplace will enable organisations to find suitable partnerships. At least 46 twinnings ranging from adaptation of impactful best practices to full adoption will be carried out. A funding advice service and capacity building framework will be provided to further stimulate deployment and scale up. Building on the unique composition of the consortium, the project will establish and manage 3 collaboration platforms to align all efforts of ongoing and future initiatives supporting the 3 DTHC priorities. The partners will utilise their vast network of more than 1,100 members representing national, regional, and EU-wide stakeholders. The collaborative work will lead to common strategic agendas and commitments for action that will boost innovation and progress in the respective topics. A Board of Associated Experts with proven high-level competence on all key fields will support the delivery of an actionable strategic vision and recommendations for EU policy beyond 2020.

Five INCAREHEART public procurers from five countries will jointly procure an ICT-enabled integrated care solution to effectively support the management of a multidisciplinary care and support model for people living with Chronic Heart Failure (CHF). Building on the partial advances seen in integrated healthcare delivery, for the first time a range of features will be integrated into a modular solution to effectively bring different care providers, family carers, and patients into a shared CHF care pathway cutting across diagnosis, acute care and jointly managed long term care. INCAREHEART will profoundly improve the quality of care and support for CHF patients as well as the cost-effectiveness of European health and social care systems by radically improving, integrating, and coordinating care. Introducing seamless transitional care processes are expected to effectively reduce emergency care needs, hospitalisation rates as well as increase treatment adherence. The INCAREHEART solution will at its core seamlessly integrate into existing ICT systems, but also into processes and working practices. The procurers have developed a comprehensive framework for setting out the design requirements to be addressed by an integrated ICT-enabled heart failure care solution. Suppliers will be rigorously evaluated after each of the procurement phases, comprising (I) an open market consultation, (II) specification of architecture and system aligned to requirements of patients, peers, and providers, (III) prototype development and testing with end-users and (IV) effectiveness proven in a trial with 500 patients and 125 professionals. INCAREHEART will serve 1,320,000 million patients with heart failure once it is fully rolled out in the procurer countries. Proven ability to cover the different health systems promises INCAREHEART suppliers’ easy entry into other EU markets and beyond, a very strong contribution to overcoming fragmentation of demand and fostering the global market.

Cancer is one the leading causes of death in Europe in the general population with reports noting the cancer-related mortality twice as high in the homeless population. Reasons for this excess are linked to risky health behaviours as well as significant barriers experienced by homeless people when trying to access the often highly fragmented health care systems. Timely and evidence-based preventive strategies including optimizing health care pathways provide a solution to the high cancer mortality and could improve overall health outcomes in this underserved population. The aim of the CANCERLESS project is to deliver an innovative solution as an aggregate intervention based on the combination of the tested Patient Navigator Model and Patient Empowerment Model to create the Health Navigator Model for Europe. The Health Navigator Model is an evidence-based patient-centred intervention which develops patient empowerment through health education and social support and promotes timely access to primary and secondary prevention services. CANCERLESS includes partner organizations with long-standing experience in working in the field of health and social care for the homeless in the south, east, northwest and central Europe, as well as academic institutions and local governments. Using the Consolidated Framework for Implementation as well as the Research and the Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation and Maintenance frameworks based on implementation science know-how, the CANCERLESS project aims to reduce the gap in health inequalities for the homeless population by reducing cancer burden, which will, in turn, reduce associated costs across health and social care systems in Europe. Moreover, the CANCERLESS project aims to harness the transformative potential of the integrated care pathways in cancer as well as provide health and social care policy recommendations for the adoption and implementation of the Health Navigator Model across Europe.

Public Procurement Organizations (PPO) are rethinking existing practices as currently, quality of care is compromised and they do not lead to economic most advantageous purchasing. PPO involved in different PPI/PCP are teaming up around a novel approach of Value Based Procurement (VBP) joined by national/regional procurement organizations and service providers with a common vision, a value based procurement of innovative solutions to enable the needed transformation of health and social care delivery. The EURIPHI consortium involves 14 PPO, 10 with a regional or national remit and service providers from 6 countries who together, procure for more than 200 care service providers. The European Health Public Procurement Alliance members are also contributing to the project. This provides a strong basis to build out a Value Based PPI Community of Practice (CoP) to successfully achieve one of the key objectives of the CSA. The EURIPHI common vision is to build out around a MEAT VBP framework which will be made accessible with adaptions necessary to support the cross-border PPI leading to “MEAT Value Based PPI”. Cross-border PPI-Legal guidance will be developed by legal expert partners. Innovative solutions will be identified in the fields of rapid diagnostic (RD) tools in infectious disease and in the most promising integrated care services (IC). The identification of specific demands and prioritization will be done by expert partners and through the establishment of the Health Regional Network including stakeholders. Following an open market consultation, case testing will be performed for 1-2 RD and 3-4 IC innovative solutions and serve as an input for the PPI or PCP writing of SC1-BHC-20-2020. Dissemination and exploitation will be done by partners with a European or International remit and by an involvement of all partners in a blog series and EURIPHI Insights, with the support of a permanent secretariat.