Yes, it's difficult to show ALL the foreseen benefits in a pilot.

Image courtesy of gponline.com

The recently published 'National Evaluation of the Department of Health’s Integrated Care Pilots', performed by RAND Europe and Ernst and Young, is an interesting read. Besides pointing out several benefits in the business process and quality field, it also notes that several benefits (mainly in the consumer/patient domain) could not be demonstrated. This could easily lead to less scholarly interpretations, suggesting these pilots were a turn in the wrong direction. Given the experience (from our team back at the University of Primorska) with similar pilots I can confirm that it's very difficult to demonstrate all the foreseen benefits of a novel intervention in a pilot. Especially as  these interventions often do not replace the existing interventions or services but merely complement them (thus it's sometimes difficult to demonstrate reductions of patient visits or to show the cost efficiency).
I am happy to see that the majority of media publications and related forum posts were supportive of this.


And I hope we will soon be able to discard the following interpretation: '...the most likely improvements following integrated care activities are in healthcare processes. They are less likely to be apparent in patient experience or in reduced costs.' Obviously further improvements in the field of patient engagement and empowerment - likely including certain levels of gamification and possibly socially (family) driven motivation - will be needed.


What is your take on this?

Some further references:
http://www.gponline.com/Medeconomics/article/1080910/Promoting-integrated-care---does-mean/
http://www.ehi.co.uk/news/primary-care/7659/integrated-care-pilots-show-few-benefits

Social Project Management

Projects need management. Projects also need the project team to collaborate - communicate, share and version documents, discuss issues, share information, mutually track assignments and their progress, identify optimal meeting times, hold online meetings etc.

Social project management brings the concept of social networks to project management. And as you would imagine there are online tools supporting this two concepts.

Perhaps you've already heard of or used online collaboration and project management tools - personally I've been implementing ProjectPlace and CoMindWork for collaboration in various different projects and in different organisational settings - either internal or with up to 70 partner organizations across Europe (EPAAC Joint Action, PARENT Joint Action). ProjectPlace has recently published an article in International Innovation on the topic of Social Project Management including some of my thoughts on importance of online collaboration and experience with their tool. International Innovation is a global dissemination resource for the wider scientific, technology and research communities. To read the whole article, see the issue - scroll to pages 96 and 97.
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Our experts form part of several cross-European virtual teams, analysing data, preparing policies, strategies, etc. Reliable and cost efficient communication channels, collaborative work on documents, and transparent reporting are key for these teams to work in an efficient and effective manner, thus ensuring success of research projects. When preparing a Joint Action proposal in spring 2011, both NIPHRS as proposal coordinator and 17 partners from 16 member states faced a short time window to agree on the proposal content, timings, responsibilities and finance. Use of classic communication channels (e-mail and telephone) would hamper the timely preparation of the proposal. We were happy to have in place online solutions (Projectplace) to work collaboratively in a structured and transparent way that enabled us to catch the deadline while maximising the quality of proposal.

In our field of work (eHealth, Public Health), interdisciplinary collaboration as well as collaboration between stakeholders and organizations across Member States is of vital importance in pursuing our goals. I feel strongly that social media present an opportunity to enable faster and easier sharing of information and increase the ease and transparency of the collaboration process. However, as we still observe lack of adoption of social media in certain environments, we need to invest more time to educating and demonstrating value.

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What is your opinion on social project management? Are you already using it in your organisation and in what scenarios? I would love to hear about your experience.

Tips&Tricks: CIP funded projects for Public Organizations

Today our Ministry of science and technology organized an information day to present the 6th Call of CIP ICT PSP programme by the EC. I had the pleasure to present some of the tips&tricks based on my experience gained from participating in two CIP projects. I structured the recommendations around the things to have in mind while:

• creating the proposal (i.e. how to ensure remaining funding; to be careful about other direct cost where own participation cannot be contributed in kind)
• formalising the project (i.e. keeping an eye on possible common fund pooling - reducing EC contribution on partner level)
• doing the actual work (i.e. cash flow issues, partner exits as opportunities, avoidance of double staff reporting, application of local procurement legislation)
• and not forgetting its sustainability and possible intellectual property rights issues.

I also did a short pro/contra of CIP to other programmes.The presentation is in Slovene language. We've also listened to the presentation on the upcoming CEF framework by Maruška Damjan. Kudos to Samo Zorc for organizing the event and to ZIT @ Chamberce of Commerce and Industry of Slovenia for hosting it.

Thanks for all the positive feedback!

Napovednik predavanja: Socialne igre na spletu kot orodje za boljše zdravje (12. 12. 2011)

Spletne socialne igre so v zadnjih dveh letih doživele razcvet in ustvarile milijardni trg. Razlogi za hitro rast so vedno večja uporaba spletnih socialnih omrežij, dostopanje do njih preko (pametnih) mobilnih naprav ter sama razpoložljivost iger. Poslovni modeli spletnih iger so zelo raznoliki - od zaračunavanja igranja do povezovanja brezplačnih iger v oglaševalske akcije, izobraževanje ali celo nova znanstvena odkritja. Predavanje bo skušalo odgovoriti na vprašanje, ali lahko (in kako) tovrstne igre, ki lahko v celoti  potekajo na spletu ali imajo tudi fizično komponento, uporabimo tudi za ohranjanje in spodbujanje zdravja posameznikov in skupin. S tem namreč korenito spreminjamo koncept dosedanjega javnega zdravja.


Če vas je pritegnilo, ste vabljeni na predavanje, ki ga bom imel  12. 12. ob 11:30 - 12:15 v mali predavalnici Dijaškega doma Koper ter bo služilo kot izvolitveno predavanje za naziv docent za področje eZdravje. Predavanje bo potekalo v slovenščini.

Če vas že srbijo ušesa, si lahko do takrat na temo zunanje motivacije in zdravja ogledate moj nedavni TEDx govor z naslovom We're motivated to stay healthy. Really?

Medicine 2.0 2011 Stanford University

This year's Medicine 2.0 is happening in Silicon Valley in California. The location adds an interesting (entrepreneurial?) touch to the event. Stanford Summit (a satellite event happening the day before Medicine 2.0) was what I'd call 'American Style', full of hype generation and US eHealth celebrities.
Today it was more down to earth:) and back to research. We've heard Gunther Eysenbach speaking on infodemiology, Jennifer Aaker on utilising social media to do good, and a lot of other highly renowned experts in the field (like Peter Murray, Kevin Clauson).
For those interested in following the event, it's simple - just follow the twitter #med2 hashtag or go to www.medicine20congress.com.
I also try to tweet what I find interesting @matic_meglic.
Next year's Medicine 2.0 will be in Boston. I'm already looking forward.

Building momentum for eHealth at MoH - two thumbs up this time.

I have been rather disillusioned with the national eHealth project in Slovenia in my previous post. This was mostly related to a seeming lack of MoH understanding of the eHealth landscape complexity, reflecting itself in an awkward call for eHealth Sector Head.
I notice with pleasure that nurses, medical doctors and pharmacists are now eligible to apply for the newly published call for three further posts at MoH's newly set up Sector for eHealth. Thumbs up to MoH for listening to the voices from the crowd.
All in all a build-up of a proper team is finally taking place at MoH and intense efforts are being put into producing the new law on health care data, likely reflecting the urgent need to set up the National Centre for Health care Informatics. Inability to set up the Centre was a major MoH issue in the past and now they seem to have found the momentum to overcome this. Another 'thumbs up' for that as well.

MoH logo property of MoH Slovenia.

eHealth Discrimination in Slovenia?

Slovene eHealth is in turmoil. After recent disagreements between our health minister and the (recently appointed) national eHealth project leader Dr de Leonni Stanonik the project has been left with no project leader. The ministry decided to change the approach and created a special task force (led by the minister Marušič himself) to break the project's spell.
In the beginning of July the ministry opened a new Secretary position in the (new) eHealth sector that is likely (given the published job description) to be responsible for running the eHealth project operatively.
The application deadline was last week. Today I couldn't hold back my curiosity any longer and went to check the published description of the position's responsibilities and formal requirements.
What struck me was the fact that medical doctors, nurses, pharmacologists (and say lawyers) are not able to apply for the eHealth position while mathematicians and mechanical engineers can.
In times when importance of end-user engagement and dialogue in development of new e-services has long been proven crucial, medical and nursing professional background would in my opinion be of key benefit. And taking into account the demanding past experience in engaging Slovene medical professionals in the eHealth project (they are always busy - and that I can understand), it would certainly be of benefit to have as a secretary someone who can deal with them efficiently.
So let's look at who is eligible to apply: besides the obvious (IT background) you could apply if you were a mathematician or mechanical engineer (relation to eHealth remains unclear). I can also understand that an economist (eligible) likely has an understanding of managing cash flows of complex projects, but why would an electrical engineer do this better than a medical doctor or a nurse (not eligible)? Or why a mathematician has superior eHealth knowledge to an MD.
This leaves me further disillusioned about the future of national eHealth in Slovenia. But I hope I'm mistaken.
What's your opinion on this?