The Can.Heal project aims at aligning clinical and population-based interventions.
By exploiting the increasing wealth of data on genomes it will allow better and earlier diagnosis. And by taking account of regulatory, scientific, economic, research and gender perspectives, it will increasingly make it possible to give the right treatment to the right patient at the right time. This is not only better for patients: it can also bring benefits to health care systems. Improved diagnoses and more effectively targeted treatments can help to reduce lost time for patients and doctors, and avoid waste of resources. The two strands of the project – care and protection – are reflected in the title CAN.HEAL.
The CAN.HEAL consortium recognises that prevention, diagnosis and treatment should be approached in a concerted way for optimal benefit of patients and citizens. They focus on applying ‘next generation sequencing’ technology and identifying implementation paths to extend the application of genetic profiling to structure omics use in patient care, share data among EU Cancer Centres which would improve equity in treatment, and allow better counselling regarding cancer risk using molecular tumour profiling biomarkers. They wish to set the framework for integrating the Genome of Europe biobanking initiative into public health genomics for cancer.
Objectives
1. Drive a process to allow framework to implement NGS and PHG into healthcare systems to ensure early diagnosis
2. Provide operational feedback from stakeholders to the other WPs
3. Ensure effective external communication and dissemination of key findings
Despite significant advances in cancer therapy, there is still a long road ahead to improve disparities in cancer screening, diagnosis, treatment, quality of life, management of survivorship, and palliative care at the end of life.
Among the challenges encountered within and across Europe, the most common disparities are observed in accessing information, spiraling costs of healthcare, accessing optimal treatment options with complete treatment modalities and optimal outcomes, ensuring the best Quality of Life for patients during and after the treatment process, integrating cancer research and innovative cancer care, and accessing networked, multidisciplinary cancer care teams.
In response to this concerning scenario, the Cancer Care Beacon project focuses on three iterative pillars:
1. mapping of capacity and capabilities across cancer centers in the European Union;
2. creating decision support tools that will assist our four stakeholders: patients in finding the best centers, providers in sharing resources and expertise, researchers in sharing data, and policymakers in aligning funding allocation with patients’ priorities;
3. getting training and accreditation to reflect the quality of their cancer care.
Throughout this project, they will deliver three main end products:
1. proposed roadmap to scale current capacity and capabilities in order to address existing cancer disparities,
2. a plethora of reports, including both static documents and interactive Web applications, aimed at supporting decision making by our four stakeholders,
3. a sustainability plan on how we intend to directly work with our partners to keep the project alive and active beyond the two-year duration of the funding by EU4Health.
Objectives
The Cancer Care Beacon project focuses on three iterative pillars:
1. Data collection
2. Strategy and Direction
3. Treatment
The iBeChange innovative system will be developed by experts from clinical and health psychology, oncology, epidemiology, ICT, data science, and the health policy.
Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan set has ambitious goals addressing key behavioral risk factors for cancer development, such as tobacco (target reduction of 30% by 2025), alcohol consumption (target reduction of 10% by 2025), unhealthy diets and physical inactivity (see also the HealthyLifestyle4All campaign). As “about 40% of cancer cases in the EU are preventable”, health promotion and preventive measures for cancer can benefit from the implementation of behavioural change (BC) and emotional management (EM) in the general population.
However, previous research and practice have generally failed to achieve sustainable BC due to two factors: 1) not taking into account recent BC concepts showing the need of personalizing interventions and techniques; 2) not considering psychosocial features and emotions (e.g. anxiety and depression), which can interfere with effective BC and increase the risk of developing cancer. The main objective of this project is to design, develop, and test the iBeChange platform, a user-focused management system that empowers people to achieve healthy and sustainable behaviors and emotions.
It will go beyond the state of the art of sustainable BC and EM by combining practice- and evidence-based knowledge coming from clinical psychology and BC theories with the potentialities of adaptive digital technologies and artificial intelligence.
Thus, the iBeChange system will be able to dynamically observe, learn about user behaviours, and then deliver tailored and effective health interventions in a dynamic learning process. The final goal of the iBeChnage project is to contribute to the goals of Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan and European Code Against Cancer by improving long-term primary cancer prevention through informing, supporting, and empowering EU citizens. This action is part of the Cancer Mission cluster of projects on “Prevention & early detection (behavioural change)”.
In a world that’s increasingly interconnected and diverse, EAPM is dedicated to spearheading a new era in healthcare — one where precision and personalization redefine the standards of prevention and treatment strategies. Join us in exploring the forefront of medical innovation, where our commitment to individualized care is not just a goal but a revolution.
