At a glance (brief description)
Growing Demand for Quality Healthcare for Older Adults
The demand for quality and affordable medical services is rising globally, particularly due to the increasing proportion of older adults in the population. This trend places significant pressure on healthcare systems, especially in addressing age-related health concerns, such as cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), whose prevalence and associated risks grow with age. This growth in demand not only highlights the need for accessible care but also underscores the urgency of efficient resource allocation and improved preventive strategies.
Cardiovascular Disease and Hypertension: A Global Health Challenge
Cardiovascular diseases represent a major global health challenge, with hypertension being a primary risk factor across various CVDs, including coronary disease, heart failure, arrhythmia, and stroke1. The economic burden of managing these conditions is substantial, motivating the need for effective prevention and treatment. Clinical recommendations emphasize quantifying total cardiovascular risk by developing predictive models that account for variations in age and regional health factors.
Project Goals: Personalized Smart Healthcare for Hypertensive Older Adults
Our project aims to provide personalized, data-driven healthcare solutions specifically tailored for hypertensive older adults, their caregivers, and healthcare providers. Through a user-centered digital platform, we intend to support these stakeholders by leveraging insights from consortium partners and engaging a diverse range of contributors. This platform will address prevention, prognosis, and economic aspects of healthcare for hypertensive patients, enhancing the continuity and quality of care.
Enhancing Patient Care through Technology and Data
The platform will enable hypertensive patients to manage their health with personalized support while equipping healthcare providers with tools for efficient and effective care. By offering remote monitoring, patients and providers can engage closely, improving continuity of care. The project will integrate advanced data processing and machine learning to build personalized health profiles and digital twin models of hypertensive older adults, which will:
- Boost diagnostic capabilities,
- Inform future treatment designs based on health projections, and
- Test and adapt interventions in various settings.
Strategic Healthcare Support for Policymakers
Beyond direct clinical applications, the RENEW project addresses broader healthcare system needs, supporting policymakers in strategically allocating resources to optimize health outcomes. Through insights generated by the platform, decision-makers can improve resource distribution across outpatient and inpatient care, aiming to maximize public health impact.
Data Collection and Platform Integration
To build robust, individualized patient profiles, our platform will collect a variety of data, including patient health metrics, medical history, economic data, and service usage. This information will be gathered through a digital platform comprising medical devices, wearable sensors, gamification elements, and digital questionnaires. RENEW builds upon the success of the PerHeart ERA PerMed platform, initially created for heart-failure patients, adapting its framework to target hypertensive older adults. With a user-centered design, RENEW will enhance engagement, ensuring adherence throughout the pilot and validation phases.
Pilot Study and Participant Engagement
The project will conduct six-month pilot studies in Poland, Slovenia, and Italy, involving 126 participants, including 60 hypertensive patients and their caregivers and healthcare providers. This pilot will enable data collection essential for developing AI algorithms and refining the digital twin model, which will continuously evolve throughout the project and beyond.
Optimizing Health Outcomes and Economic Efficiency
RENEW’s approach provides personalized, data-driven feedback to optimize the use of preventive treatments, devices, and therapies, benefiting patients both medically and economically. To maximize project impact, we will engage a wide range of stakeholders—100+ primary stakeholders in platform design, and over 3,000 secondary and tertiary stakeholders via dissemination activities, interviews, questionnaires, and focus groups.
Consortium and Collaborative Expertise
A consortium of industrial partners, academic institutions, university hospitals, and NGOs across seven countries will drive the RENEW project. This diverse collaboration ensures the necessary expertise, resources, and commitment to achieve the project’s objectives and make meaningful contributions to healthcare innovation for hypertensive older adults.