COMPAR-EU’s Final Advocacy Conference was a success!

This advocacy conference marked the culmination of  5 years of interdisciplinary work to identify, compare, and rank the most effective and cost-effective self-management interventions for adults in Europe living with high-priority chronic conditions. The conference took place on 15 & 16 November, 2022, in Brussels, Belgium.

It gathered approximately 70 stakeholders who exchanged experiences and expertise on self-management (SM) best practices, shared lessons learned from implementation of SM policies, and discussed how to best integrate and incorporate the project’s findings across various settings. Other topics, like the  Self-Management Europe Initiative, project lay-language materials, and self-management policy implementation practices were also feature in the programme.

Lyudmil Ninov  joined a session on the Self-Management Europe initiative and patient involvement, while Kaisa Immonen led an important session on health literacy and the social determinants of healthcare. Valentina Strammiello opened and closed the event, and guided discussions throughout the two half-days.

An important conclusion: Having self-management plans and procedures in place should be strongly encouraged for these to become an integral part of healthcare systems across Europe.

After a Day One Recap delivered by Valentina Strammiello, Dr. David Somekh (EHFF) moderated a discussion on the topic of ‘Self-Management in the Digital Era’. To begin with, Pablo Alonso (Senior Researcher at Sant Pau Biomedical Research Institute), guided the audience through the COMPAR-EU platform, which includes all the project results as well as decision aids for the conditions covered in the project.

As a member of the COMPAR-EU patient panel, Alessandra Veronese pointed out in her presentation the need for patient involvement in the clinical research of digital technologies. According to her, “patient involvement can help shed light on new trends, and the data generated by wearables can be used for estimating risk”.

For Dr. Richard Pratt (GP and Founder FORMYDOCTOR), self-management primarily means working ‘smarter’. While going digital can improve the process, safety should remain a central consideration. He noted that only about 20% of apps meet rigorous safety standards, which represents a risk. However, he continued by pointing out that the bigger risk is ‘doing nothing’. To conclude this morning session,

Dr. David Somekh invited the audience to reflect on opportunities for sustainable development:

Digital is an enabler – it is not the only solution. We all know the crisis of health systems can also be the opportunity for real change.
Ninov_Lyudmil

Lyudmil Ninov

Lyudmil Ninov is EPF´s Senior Programme Officer. He joined EPF in April 2017. His focus is mainly on the PRO-STEP tender project, Summer Training for Young Patients Advocates 2017 & 2018, Horizon 2020 projects proposals/calls, COMPAR-EU and CHRODIS projects and providing support to other EPF projects and team members.