Homepage

DIGI4Care aims to foster the uptake of innovation and digital technologies in healthcare provision through transnational collaboration. It aims to develop, test, and validate joint solutions that address the primary challenges impeding the uptake and upscaling of digital technologies in the health industry, embedded in a strengthened quadruple transnational research and innovation ecosystem. The Partnership comprises 12 partners from 8 countries, each representing varying degrees of innovation and digital technology integration in healthcare. By facilitating transnational cooperation, knowledge transfer, and enhancing innovation capacities, DIGI4Care also contributes to narrowing the innovation gap between the older and newer Member States, as well as non-EU countries in the Danube Region. DIGI4Care assesses and validates the feasibility, benefits, and added value of integrating digital technologies into healthcare processes and workflows from the perspective of key enabling conditions, namely technology landscaping and assessment, financing models, data storage and management, regulatory and ethical barriers, embedding digital technologies into workflow and ensuring necessary skills for Healthcare Professionals (HCPs) that are defined as the joint dimensions of interest of partners. DIGI4Care employs a novel strategy that sets it apart from other initiatives in the Danube Region by leveraging the potential of digital technologies to enhance the quality of healthcare services and improve patient outcomes throughout the patient journey, including prevention and screening, primary and outpatient care, as well as post-clinical, long-term, and rehabilitation care. This is achieved through the implementation of 4 pilot actions that are transnationally co-designed, co-implemented, and co-evaluated. Pilots focus on the introduction of digital technologies in core phases of care in disease areas that affect substantial population groups both within and beyond the Danube Region. These diseases include diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, Alzheimer's, dementia, and other cognitive diseases. DIGI4Care undertakes the development of a Digitally Enabled Integrated Care Model (O1.3) and corresponding Action Plans (O1.3) to enhance the integration of digital technologies along the patient journey. This is supported by the accumulation of transnational knowledge in a digital Knowledge Platform and Radar (O1.2), as well as ongoing exchange on digital health technologies. A pilot-validated Data Management Model (O2.2) ensures comparability of results and facilitates future transnational cooperation, while a Dashboard (O3.2) aids data- and evidence-based decision-making to promote adoption. Additionally, DIGI4Care creates a comprehensive Training and Capacity-building Toolbox (O3.1), enhances university curricula (D3.3.1), and provides policy recommendations (D3.4.1) to foster large-scale support for digital technologies, thus further facilitating technology uptake. These pivotal outputs do not only hold significant value for the consortium, they are also designed for long-term sustainability and transferability, enabling widespread country- and Danube Region-level dissemination and achieving lasting outcomes. The novel approach embraced by DIGI4Care establishes a new standard in terms of the scope and quality of collaboration, marking a notable advancement in the region's innovation landscape.