Europe’s population is ageing and the growing burden of chronic conditions and multimorbidity is steadily increasing the demand for more extended and efficient care. The EU funded Joint Action on implementation of Digitally Enabled integrated person-centred CARE – JADECARE [Homepage | About] intends to reinforce the capacity of health authorities to successfully address the health system transition to digitally enabled integrated person-centred care and aims to reinforce the capacity of health authorities for successfully addressing all the important aspects of health system transformation in particular the transition to digitally enabled, integrated, person-centred care.
In the spirit of the above, JADECARE focuses on the transfer and adoption of four original Good Practices (oGPs) concerning chronic conditions, self-care, prevention and population health to the contexts of 21 Next Adopters (NA).
- The Basque Health strategy in ageing and chronicity: integrated care (Spain),
- The Catalan open innovation hub on ICT-supported integrated care services for chronic patients (Spain),
- The OptiMedis Model-Population-based integrated care (Germany)
- The Digital roadmap towards an integrated health care sector (Denmark).
45 organisations from 16 different EU countries participate in the project that started on October 1 2020 and ends on September 30 2023.
National Directorate General for Hospitals (OKFŐ), the Hungarian consortium member leads dissemination and communication in Work Package 2 (WP2) with the participation of two Hungarian Affiliated Entities: Jahn Ferenc South Pest Hospital and Clinic (JFDPK) and the Health Services Management Training Centre (EMK) of SEMMELWEIS UNIVERSITY.
OKFŐ performs co-leadership tasks in WP6 sub-working group to utilise good practices of the Catalan Open Innovation Hub on ICT-Supported Integrated Care Services for Chronic Patients (by combining elements of the other GP-s as well). In this latter role, OKFŐ with the contribution of JFDPK and EMK organized the Thematic Workshop: VERTICAL & HORIZONTAL INTEGRATION: DIABETES MORBIDITY that focused on the process of initial deployment and sustainable adoption of specific integrated care services (ICS).
The 2 days’ meeting took place in a hybrid format – active contributions of the four next adopters: Hungary; Italy (Napoli Nord-IT; Marché-IT), Estonia. The workshop was organised with the aim to share information on the status of so far implementation/adoption of integrated care services, and to explore in depth practicalities of these activities using diabetes morbidity as a use case, focusing on implementation/adoption challenges, risk assessment and digitalization.
The 1st day of the workshop was devoted to discuss both the Hungarian pilot on cardiovascular complication of diabetes and the Italian pilot on home-based services, as well as to show cased and analysed the two integrated care services (ICS) already adopted in Catalonia: Hospital at Home/transitional care/Prevention of hospitalizations; and Pre-habilitation/Rehabilitation.
Dr. Róbert Wernigg, head of department of Primary Care Planning & Development, Directorate of Primary and Secondary Care Services at OKFŐ, presented about the Hungarian health system. Then Dr. István Kósa, head of department at Dep. of Medical Rehabilitations and Physical Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, of the University of Szeged, introduced existing developments in digitally enabled integrated person-centred care in Hungary, with a special regard to the development needs of primary care.
The characteristics of the Diabetes Unit of the Hospital Clinic de Barcelona (HCB) – with specific proposals for the Hungarian team- were presented by Prof. Dr. Josep Roca, senior researcher at IDIBAPS, who highlighted three different dimensions: the organizational and clinical aspects, digital support and health risk assessment in the clinical arena. Isaac Cano PhD, researcher at IDIBAPS and CEO at Health Circuit, shared innovative views on digital tools that clinicians can use to foster collaborative work across healthcare tiers, and detailed how these can be implemented on top of existing health information systems (Health Circuit). The initiative is currently tested in Barcelona with pre-habilitation, as a use case. Moreover, Isaac Cano also gave an account on current developments & terms of enhanced clinical risk prediction in Barcelona. The first day finished with presentations of plans for digital transformation in Hungary, with a summary of ongoing public-private collaborative initiatives in diabetes care.
The sessions of the 2nd day began with a wrap-up of debates/achievements of the previous day, followed by the formulation of plans for the second project phase period. Participants agreed on seeking collaborations during the upcoming meeting of the national society to be held in early September, with the aim to expand the stakeholder involvement at national level with clinical leadership in primary care. In parallel with this building up a solid collaboration between clinical teams from Barcelona and Hungary is crucial to speed-up the transfer of the Catalan programme to Hungary and can consolidate local action plans both in Hungary and in Napoli-Nord. The workshop ended with the sustainability session, prepared by WP4 of the JADECARE project.
“The workshop provided a great opportunity to discuss and enhance the adaptation and the implementation of the current best practice in Catalonia to Hungary. I am positive that based on our experiences having gathered in the project we will be able to formulate recommendations on practicalities of implementation/adoption of integrated care services at EU level”-said Prof. Dr. Josep Roca.
”Our overall aim is to elaborate a strategy for sustainable implementation of an integrated care for management of diabetes that can be proposed to the Hungarian government as part of a national strategy for diabetes”- said István Csizmadia, Chief Executive Advisor, at the Directorate for Programme Management and Project Coordination of the National Directorate General for Hospitals (OKFŐ). He also added: ”We are grateful for all the guidance and valuable input received from colleagues of the Hospital Clinic de Barcelona (HCB).”
More information on the Hungarian workshop host:
National Directorate General for Hospitals (OKFŐ) – as the background institution of the Ministry of Human Capacities in Hungary – is a governmental agency responsible for coordination, development and quality assurance of healthcare provision and services, also functions as the maintainer of over 100 hospitals all over Hungary. OKFŐ manages a great number of international projects and EU funded operative programmes for health development, thus having an extended international partner network.
- OKFŐ is the Hungarian consortium partner in the JA Jadecare project,
- while Jahn Ferenc South Pest Hospital and Clinic (JFDPK) and the
- Semmelweis University Faculty of Public Health, Centre for Health Management Training (EMK) are participating as affiliated partner institutions.
With their involvement, National Directorate General for Hospitals is leading work package 2 (WP2) on dissemination and communication as well as co-chairing WP6 on the exploitation of Catalan good practice (combining elements from other selected oGP examples.
More information on the JADECARE approach and the JA coordinator:
In the JADECARE Joint Action, the EU is supporting Member States to test how they can make the best use of the information shared, in 1-1 pilot projects, in addition to exchanging experience and transferring knowledge. The project is led and coordinated by the Basque best practice host, the KRONIKGUNE Institute for Health Services Research (the Basque regional government’s institute for research into the management and organisation of health and social care services and for research support).
In adopting and implementing the original good practices (oGPs), the project will also take into account the situation and specificities of the next adopters and will apply a three-phase strategy to ensure the sustainability of policy measures at local, regional and national level for integrated care, and will publish its main results.