Digital Support for Integrated Care – Across the Hospitals, Municipalities and General Practice

United efforts by the EU on digital support for integrated care

Under the headline “Digitally Enabled, Integrated, Person-Centred Care”, the European Commission are working to advance knowledge sharing for the purpose of getting regions that are stronger within digital technologies in cross sectional treatment and care to support other regions within Europe.

At a conference on the 24th of June 2019, Stefan Sjødahl, a project manager within the Health Innovation Centre of Southern Denmark, presented the Region of Southern Denmark’s current work on the development of digital solutions that enhance a more coherent patient course for patients across the municipalities, hospitals and general practice.

Besides the Region of Southern Denmark, the Spanish regions the Basque country and Catalonia, and the German Kinzigtal, Schwarzwald each presented their case. The case from the Basque country deals with the regional strategy for integrated care, which is going to secure the health of elder citizens and citizens with chronical illnesses. The case from Catalonia was presented by the Catalonian innovation hub for IKT-supported integrated care, which supports patients with chronical illnesses to sustain a happy life with their disease. Finally, the case from Kinzigtal revolved around the so-called OptiMedis Model that, based on all the actors revolving the citizens, concerns itself with integrated care in the different populations.  

The next step is to establish a dialogue between countries and regions on how to practice knowledge sharing, and how those responsible in the four selected cases can contribute to other regions' learning and, perhaps, implementing it as well. 

From 10 to 4 regions

The explanation for the Region of Southern Denmark being a part of this is that Maria Hardt Schønnemann, the Health Innovation Centre of Southern Denmark, presented the case “Roadmap towards Integrated Care” in a workshop at a market place in Italy, December 2018. Amongst other things, the case dealt with GTP – Generic Telemedicine Platform and SAM:BO, the regional cooperation agreement on patient courses.

The European Commission had chosen 10 ‘best practice’ cases that was evaluated and consequently led to the four cases where the GTP and SAM:BO collaboration is one of them. GTP collects, illustrates and shares the patients’ health data across the general practice, hospitals and the regional home care – added to this is the data collected in the patient’s own home.

Branding the Region of Southern Denmark in European relations

Since 2012, The Region of Southern Denmark have, among many other things, participated in the European innovation collaboration on active and healthy ageing (EIP-AHA) and currently has the highest distinction of four starts. As a place of reference, the Region of Southern Denmark is obligated to enter both formal and informal partnerships with other regions within the EU. This is also one of the reasons for the region to have been chosen to participate with a case in the Digitally Enabled, Integrated, Person-Centred Case programme.

The Health Innovation Centre of Southern Denmark will continue to remit a renewed application for EIP-AHA, to continue the region’s work on supporting an active and healthy ageing.