IMPROVE will use Patient Generated Health Data (PGHD) gathered via m-health and e-health technologies to gain improved insights into the real-life behavior of, and challenges faced by, patients of all ages with complex, chronic diseases and comorbidities. Already today, a wealth of patient and citizen information is available, but fragmented, and therefore not coming to its full utility and value. These personal data will complement and improve existing approaches for Patient-Centered Outcome Measures beyond those currently available in state-of-the-art platforms. The IMPROVE platform that the consortium will build will enable the smart use of patient input and patient generated evidence to 1) advance the role of patient preference and patient experience in the context of treatment selection, 2) improve medical device design based on patient preferences and experiences, and 3) facilitate faster market entry of patient-centric and cost-effective advanced integrated care solutions. Improved clinical adoption of Value Based Health Care, and enhanced return on research and innovation investments will be demonstrated in different care settings across the EU, for 10 use cases in at least 5 different disease areas (e.g., ophthalmology, oncology, cardiovascular disease, chronic inflammation, and neurology). The use cases will be conducted using a large variety of implementation strategies, building on a design thinking approach, to optimally test the innovative framework of data gathering and translation into controlled change and action. In addition, a significant contribution from implementation science is planned to reach out to all stakeholders that are relevant for this initiative and maximise the impact to IMPROVE healthcare provision.

The prevention and care of chronic diseases are among the priorities of the EU's current health strategy. Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD), one of the most common chronic degenerative diseases, is often accompanied by high mortality and morbidity, and it has a high socio-economic impact. On the other hand, with the incidence rate of 13,3 million cases per year, Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) is a major contributor to the global health burden and the global death toll of this disease is 1,7 million deaths yearly. Amidst the rising tide of AKI and CKD burden, the global nephrology workforce has failed to expand in order to meet the growing healthcare needs of this vulnerable patient population, thus cooperation at an international level would be necessary to boost workforce and sustainable models of healthcare delivery. The Nephrology Partnership for Advancing Technology in Healthcare (N-PATH) will develop a European Strategic Partnership between Universities and clinic centres specialized in diagnostic and interventional nephrology with the overall objective (1) to stimulate the appeal in nephrology among learners at European level and (2) to improve the educational continuum, in order to respond to the unmet need to develop a policy framework for the provision of high-quality services within European health system.SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES developing innovative and multidisciplinary educational path with a patient-centered approach focusing on diagnostic and interventional nephrologyfostering the knowledge transfer from research to clinical practice in order to tackle risk management in health carestrengthening the cooperation among Universities and clinical centres in order to boost innovation and exchange of best practicespromoting the positive aspects of nephrology careers at European levelThe present proposal will jointly develop 4 curricula: Molecular Pathology, Vascular Access, Ultrasound and Peritoneal Dialysis.TARGET: 40 junior nephrologists (≤ 40 years old)

The management of febrile patients is one of the most common and important problems facing healthcare providers. Distinction between bacterial infections and trivial viral infection on clinical grounds is unreliable, and as a result innumerable patients worldwide undergo hospitalization, invasive investigation and are treated with antibiotics for presumed bacterial infection when, in fact, they are suffering from self-resolving viral infection. We aim to improve diagnosis and management of febrile patients, by application of sophisticated phenotypic, transcriptomic (genomic, proteomic) and bioinformatic approaches to well characterised large-scale, multi-national patient cohorts already recruited with EU funding. We will identify, and validate promising new discriminators of bacterial and viral infection including transcriptomic and clinical phenotypic markers. The most accurate markers distinguishing bacterial and viral infection will be evaluated in prospective cohorts of patients reflecting the different health care settings across European countries. By linking sophisticated new genomic and proteomic approaches to careful clinical phenotyping, and building on pilot data from our previous studies we will develop a comprehensive management plan for febrile patients which can be rolled out in healthcare systems across Europe.