An estimated 50 million people in the EU (60% aged over 65) live with multimorbidity, which deeply impacts quality of life. Annually, chronic disease management is estimated to cost €700 billion (70-80% of healthcare costs) in the European Union (EU). On top of this, the EU faces strong concerns over the sustainability of health services due to increasing healthcare expenditure, as well as disparities in the number of practising health professionals. To deliver sustainable, efficient multimorbidity care, the EU must expand the use of innovative digital health tools that empower at-home self-management, enhance quality of life, and decentralise services to the community.
The aim of ‘SEURO’ was to evaluate key factors necessary to prepare any EU region to successfully implement, transfer and scale innovative digital health solutions for multimorbidity management. This was achieved via the successful development of three new organisational digital self-assessment tools (ProTransfer, ProBCF-C and ProInsight), which help prepare organisations to maximise the transferability, use and impact of digital health solutions in practice. These tools were evaluated parallel to trials in Ireland, Belgium, Sweden and Italy to assess the effectiveness of the ProACT platform (developed under H2020 project ‘ProACT’ - Grant No 689996 - proact2020.eu) to support older adults (over age 65) self-managing with multimorbidity supported by their care networks. To achieve the project aim, SEURO had the following objectives:
1. Adapt and deploy a transferability self-assessment tool (ProTransfer) to evaluate organisational and local/regional specific readiness for the transferability of ProACT.
2. Implement and evaluate a Behavioural Change Framework (ProBCF) to maximise effective user engagement and scalability of a digital health solution in a ‘Real World’ deployment.
3. Evaluate via trials across Ireland, Belgium and Sweden within and across country transfer, sustainability and scalability of ProACT.
4. Develop a systematic approach for evaluating and assessing organisational/local/regional preparedness using a digital Integrated care system.
5. Develop further the ProACT platform for managing multimorbidity at scale (e.g. advance the analytic capabilities of the platform)
6. Conduct an exploratory trial in Italy to validate the tools and to explore the compatibility of ProACT with existing requirements and constraints of local and EU procurement processes.
7. Develop clear exploitation and dissemination plans for intellectual property created from SEURO
Project outcomes show the tools provide value in supporting organisations to improve their readiness to transfer and scale digital health solutions in practice. Trials of the ProACT platform show its ability to support older adults to effectively self-manage multimorbidity at home. The tools and platform are robust, transferable digital health technologies which provide the ability to advance digital health transformation and improve the health and well-being of EU citizens.
