Introduction

The call is available for health and care providers in Europe that wish to adopt innovative solutions which are available for transfer from another local, regional or national health and care provider in Europe.

In DigitalHealthEurope, the twinning programme is a support mechanism for scaling up innovative digital solutions. Twinnings are used as a mechanism for accelerating fulfilment of the Communication’s priorities, by enabling the transfer of innovative solutions from one European region or country to another.

The region/country with the innovative practice is called a Twinning Originator, and the implementing region/country is referred to as a Twinning Adopter. There can be more than one Twinning Adopter per twinning.

Twinning

Interested organisations and individuals will first exchange ideas on twinning solutions which they can offer or would like to adopt. A twinning marketplace has been set up by DigitalHealthEurope to facilitate the matchmaking process. Potential Twinning Originators can post information about their available twinning solutions, and those wishing to be Twinning Adopters can specify their solution requirements.

Twinning Activities may include, for example, hosting meetings, organising technical groups, travelling, acquiring licenses, paying fees for professional services. Twinnings typically last up to ten months, depending on complexity and Twinning Type.

Expected Digital Solutions to be covered by Twinnings

The innovative digital solutions whose adoption in a new region can be supported through DigitalHealthEurope twinnings must be related to one or more of the three priorities defined in the Communication, namely:

► citizens’ secure access to and sharing of health data across borders

► better data to advance research, disease prevention and personalised health and care

► digital tools for citizen empowerment and person-centred care.

A tender for twinning (i.e., an application made by a tenderer) must specify the twinning solution(s) to be addressed and how it relates to one or more of the overall priorities.

Priority 1: Citizens' secure access to and sharing of health data across borders

► Citizens' secure access to their health data - e.g., via secure online portal, citizen’ access to an Electronic Health Record (EHR), a Personal Health Record (PHR) incl. telemonitoring data and shared with health professionals

► Interoperable electronic health records deployed at national and regional level enabling citizens' secure access to and sharing of health data; General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliant, secure health data exchange

► Citizen-enabled sharing of health data across borders: patient summary and/or ePrescription, discharge letter, medical images, lab results

► Citizen-controlled data governance, health data cooperatives, health data donation

Priority 2: Better data to promote research, disease prevention and personalised health and care

► Digital infrastructure for personalised medicine, -omics databanks, biomedical infrastructures

► Good practice in digital genomics, incl. whole genome sequencing

► Use of real-world data (RWD), data quality assessment and improvement

► Health data analytics (Artificial Intelligence, algorithm development and calibration, machine learning, risk stratification tools, etc.)

► Big data analysis, particularly for preventive medicine and treatment

► Health data donation, public preference models on data use for research

► Interoperability of disease registries including for rare diseases, data aggregation and sharing across borders, incl. at EU level

► Digital tools for public health, epidemiology, pharmacovigilance, clinical research, incl. reuse of EHRs for clinical research

Priority 3: Digital tools for citizen empowerment and for person-centred careCitizen/patient-focused solutions

► Digital tools to support health education (health literacy), digital health literacy

► mHealth systems, wearable devices for monitoring and prevention, alerts, reminders

► Digital tools to support patient feedback and reporting of outcomes and experiences

► Digital tools to support proactive prevention, self-management, homecare, telemonitoring

► Tele-mentoring/coaching, virtual consultations, virtual coach, personal assistant

► ICT supporting adherence to medication and care plans

► Robotics (e.g., companion robots)

► Tools and services supporting independent living, ambient assisted living technologies, telecare

Twinning Types

Twinnings can be grouped into three types. They range from knowledge exchange to adoption (whether partial or full) of the transferred solution. The different twinning types require different forms of funding, have different deployment time frames and need different experts.

► Knowledge exchange and training: This type of twinning mainly targets local authorities which do not have much experience with EU networking but are eager to learn from experiences in other parts of Europe. The twinning is seen as a first step to discuss a concrete solution (product, service, methodology) and how it can be transferred to the adopting region(s). The capacity needed is built during the twinnings. This includes identification of appropriate staff, setting up a process roadmap, defining expected outcomes, etc.

► Partial adoption: Twinnings that undertake partial adoption of a digital solution will have to provide concrete evidence on impact of the adoption, as well as the reasons why a full adoption is not possible (e.g. different healthcare systems, organisational differences, reimbursement issues, etc.).

► Full adoption: This type of twinning mainly targets local authorities with well established relations with other authorities in Europe (e.g. through memorandums of understanding, past EU project partnerships, etc.), that have already planned collaboration on a specific topic/solution and have made first steps, such as adaptation. The twinning aims to achieve a full adoption of the solution in the adopting region(s) using local infrastructure (including adaptation) or the Twinning Originator’s infrastructure.

Twinning marketplace

The twinning marketplace can be accessed via https://digitalhealtheurope.eu/twinnings.html.

Funding budget

The total budget for all twinnings to be funded in this call is €399,000.

Knowledge exchange & training, digital skills > €5,000

Partial adoption > €17,000

Full adoption > €43,000

More information at:

https://digitalhealtheurope.eu/news/details/digitalhealtheurope-launches-second-call-for-twinning.html

In case of interest please contact: lnorton@fsjd.org