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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - WHO-ITU-mHealth (WHO - ITU mHealth Hub in EU)

Teaser

Summary

The push to use Information and Communication Technologies, specifically mobile technology (mHealth), to support health care has been driven by the need to find cost-effective ways to improve quality and access to health and care services for a population that lives longer with increasingly complex chronic conditions.

The use of mHealth enables a shift in focus towards prevention, early diagnosis and self-management of chronic diseases. mHealth can achieve this in a cost-effective manner: European Commission has estimated that successful deployment of mHealth to support healthcare delivery can help save up to â‚¬99bn across Europe.

In cases of international development, governments and international organisations have found a clear case for investing in dedicated institutional and operational support for cross-border knowledge sharing. These are typically referred to as \'Knowledge\' or \'Innovation\' Hubs. Investment in these Hubs allows countries to learn from the experiences of their peers. It also allows countries with significant experiences to further refine their own practices and to develop meaningful international relationships with other countries wishing to learn from them.

WHO and ITU are working together to create a joint mHealth Hub for Europe. The Hub is intended to serve as a mechanism to share success in mHealth across the European region and boost uptake of mHealth solutions amongst national governments. At a high level, the mHealth Hub will provide services in areas of operational research, training and education, identifying standards, regulatory and policy goals, and implementation support. It will have a dual focus on knowledge management & innovation, and on practical implementation. This dual focus is particularly important for mHealth, given that one of the biggest barriers facing the broader adoption of mHealth is scaling up from pilot programs. This barrier can only be overcome with targeted implementation support and development of mHealth evidence at scale. Accordingly, these are the core functions being provided by WHO and ITU under their joint initiative Be He@lthy, Be Mobile and are subsequently those proposed for the Hub.

The objectives of the WHO-ITU-mHealth Hub project are the following:

1. To establish an EU mHealth Hub for collecting and disseminating research and experience relating to the large-scale implementation of mHealth programs;

2. To build capacity for the Hub to be able to support Member States and implementing partners in setting up large-scale mHealth programs.

With the support of the WHO-ITU partnership, national implementations will create precedence for mHealth at scale in Europe, pave the way for other Member States to follow suit and serve as a transfer of knowledge and experience from the global WHO-ITU Be He@lthy, Be Mobile initiative to the mHealth Hub in Europe. Over long term, the mHealth Hub will serve as a resource for Europe to support countries in deploying and regulating mHealth in their national health services.

Work performed

The work has been organized into 6 work packages:
WP1 - Project Management
WP2 - Knowledge Tools
WP3 - Hub Selection
WP4 - Capacity Building and Operationalization of the Hub
WP5 - Innovation and Policy
WP6 - Ethics Requirements

The first objective of the WHO-ITU-mHealth Hub project is the appointment of a reputed non-commercial Institution as a Host for the EU mHealth Hub (WP3).

On 20 September 2017, ITU published a Request for Expression of Interest (REOI) on UNGM, with the objective of identifying potential and qualified Institutions to take up the role of the host of the EU mHealth Hub. ITU received EOIs from 12 institutions, subsequently assessed by ITU and WHO.

On 21 December 2017, 11 institutions were informed of the solicitation. One organization was excluded due to its location outside of Europe. Institutions had until 5 February 2018 to submit their Proposals electronically via In-tend. 5 proposals were received. The Technical Evaluation was carried out by the Technical Team appointed by ITUâ€™s BDT Director.

In the first stage, the Proposals were assessed against the Pass/Fail Criteria set forth in the Solicitation. Four Proposals complied with all the technical Pass/Fail Criteria and therefore were shortlisted for the second stage of the Technical Evaluation, where the Proposals were assessed against a set of predefined Technical Evaluation Criteria. Three candidates made the threshold score, suggesting they were all likely to be capable and up to the task of Hosting the EU mHealth Hub.

Following the finalization of the Technical Evaluation, the Commercial Proposals of the Technically Compliant Institutions were opened on In-tend on Friday 12 May 2018 and assessed against a set of predefined Commercial Evaluation Criteria. The final outcome of the selection process will be announced in the near future. Following successful selection of the Hub host, the ongoing work will focus on building capacity within the Hub to implement national scale mHealth programs within the EU.

In parallel, the Project has worked on developing Knowledge Tools (WP2) that will form the starting point for development of national programs for implementing specific mHealth services. This work included preparation and development of a knowledge tool for COPD and Asthma (mBreatherFreely) and to support the elderly (mAgeing).

As part of the Innovations and Policy Work Package (WP5), the project has produced a preliminary report on mHealth Assessment Frameworks, where existing assessment frameworks for mHealth apps were analysed to identify a core set of criteria for a shared EU mHealth Assessment Framework. The preliminary report was presented to the EU eHealth Network in May 2018 and will be followed up by the Hub as part of the Project.

Final results

\"The Project works towards five expected impacts of the Coordination and Support Action specified in the H2020 Work Programme 2016-2017 under \"\"Establishing EU mHealth Hub including evidence for the integration of mHealth in the healthcare system\"\":

1. Creating evidence on health outcomes, quality of life and care efficiency gains in the NCD management by using mHealth solutions.
2. Enabling mHealth to be deployed in national and regional level health services and to deliver large scale benefits, first of the selected entities, and later in the rest of Europe.
3. Becoming the focal point for expertise on mHealth in the EU and identifying and highlighting trends and gaps in policies, standards, regulations, etc. and best practices and barriers to the creation of consistent mHealth infrastructure and strategy.
4. Unique platform to support innovation in and up-scaling of mHealth by convening cross sector stakeholders (young entrepreneurs, start-ups, governments, technical officers etc.).
5. Creating synergies with the existing EU platforms of stakeholders such as eHealth network of Member States and also the EU EIP on Active and Healthy Ageing. (requirement, scope, impact).

The knowledge tools developed so far in WP2 address items 1 and 2 above. Further knowledge tools are expected to be developed and existing knowledge tools will be refined to be tailored for the European context.

Impact items 4 and 5 are the focus of WP4 and WP5, while Impact item 3 will be the result of a successful project and a strong, operational Hub.\"