Call SC1-DTH-10-2019-2020: Digital health and care services

Call Information
Proposal Information
The European Federation of Nursing Associations (EFN), representing 36 National Nurses Associations (professional associations-regulators-unions), is looking to be your Consortium Partner, representing the end-user, representing 3 million frontline nurses in the EU. EFN role as end-user partner offers a wide expertise in: Collecting frontline and gender sensitive data for research; Identifying, assessing, and making visible good clinical practices in health services; Integrate experiences from a women-led profession; Dissemination and exploitation of results; Organise the dissemination through policy and political discussion in EU Institutions; Move research finding towards deployment to close the implementation gap. Key Criteria EFN strengthening your proposal: Co-creation Digital tools should empower patients and frontline nurses, moving towards a system based on proactive/empowered health-aware patient/citizen. To this purpose, we need the end-user engaging in co-creation, making sure the digital/data revolution supports and facilitates the shift towards a resilient health and social care ecosystem. The end-user co-designing capacity will be key to transform systems and to make digitalisation deployable. Fit-for purpose solutions Requirements and mechanisms co-designed with the end-user are key to ensure the utility and suitability of the developed solutions. EFN plays an important role in the requirement phase by providing the consortium with the nurses’ views and expertise in: making a solution fit-for-purpose; identifying, assessing, and bringing in good practices examples. The EFN is in a key position to ensure that the development of any system, program, guidelines, etc. is in line with the EU, national & local requirements.   Patients and citizens’ empowerment Being partner in a consortium as end-user, the EFN would have an important role providing concrete input in addressing key challenges such as patient empowerment, patient safety, chronic disease management, diagnosing, home-care logistics, hospital logistics, skills and independent living. Therefore, it is key to move towards a system based on needs (unmet needs), safety and quality, including quality of life. To achieve this goal effectively, nurses are perfectly placed to indicate the needed educational, policy, research, and workplace environments. Trust Citizen and patient’ trust is a central concept in developing digital tools requiring data sharing, therefore, patients and Healthcare Professionals, in particular nurses, should be more involved in the data sharing governance, with the end-users always at the centre of the process. Due to the close relation nurses develop with the patients, families and informal carers, nurses are ideally placed to create trust from citizens towards eHealth solutions. Clinical relevance The developed solutions need to respond to patients’ needs and support the frontline professionals in the care delivery. Technology needs to empower and support nurses in data collection, therefore, involving nurses since the start of the co-design process, with specific attention to gender sensitivity, will lead to the development of tools able to support nurses and allow them to spend more time with patients, so increasing the direct-patient care time. Testing and measuring outcomes Another important role played by the EFN as end-user concerns its experience of frontline testing/upscaling, deployment strategies and site visits, peer reviews. As an EU umbrella organisation, the EFN has a solid network to collect quantitative and qualitative data related to the current challenges addressed by the Call. It is important to evaluate the state of implementation of the solution from a user’s/end-user’s point of view and provide a qualitative evaluation and feedback on their state of development and uptake. EFN role in EU Policy and Political Discussions To guarantee the success of the project, it is key to involve EU institutions in its development, as they are those that can bring change in moving towards a value-based health and social care ecosystem. Thanks to a long-lasting cooperation at EU institutional level due to its fruitful work with the European Commission (DG GROW, DG CNECT), its Agencies and with the EU Parliament, the EFN can organise policy and political discussion in the European Parliament and other EU Institutions, essential to move project outcomes and research finding towards a political commitment. EFN role in addressing the gender dimension In addition, representing 3 million nurses of which 92% are women, the EFN as partner of your consortium has an EU added value providing concrete gender input in addressing key challenges such as people-centred care, prevention, addressing the SDGs, embracing innovative health technologies, and improving working conditions. The gender dimension is key for the development of solutions, especially in the health and social care sector. In this sense, the EFN can provide useful insights to co-design solutions from a women perspective. EFN role in Dissemination/Communication If the project ensures a good dissemination and publication strategy to inform end-users and public policy design, then the project will achieve a well-defined impact. The EFN has a significant experience in leading the dissemination work package, by coordinating the efforts related to the development and implementation of detailed and realistic dissemination, communication and exploitation plans, in close collaboration with the contract holder and all the project partners.
Partners Involved
European Federation of Nurses Associations (EFN)