Bucharest Pilot: 
 University of Medicine and Pharmacy (UMF)

Colentina Clinical Hospital is a teaching hospital affiliated to the “Carol Davila” University of Medicine and Pharmacy (UMF) - Bucharest, Romania. It offers multidisciplinary inpatient and outpatient medical services for acute and chronic diseases. The hospital was founded in 1858 and can nowadays admit as many as 800 patients with conditions covering most medical specialties.

The Department of Neurology can accommodate up to 120 patients, running the whole gamut of neurologic disease – i.e. vascular, inflammatory, infectious, traumatic, toxic, autoimmune, metabolic, movement disorders, neurodegenerative, neoplastic, systemic, sleep- and seizure-related conditions. However, vascular, neurodegenerative, autoimmune (multiple sclerosis) and movement disorders (Parkinson’s disease and dystonia) constitute the bulk of the department’s regular work. The Department is also actively involved in teaching activities for hundreds of medical students and residents.

The work of the team covers most of the nine work packages of the project, with focus on the development and implementation of the three pilot phases that are expected to lead to the creation of a digital platform for the integrated care of patients with neurodegenerative conditions, including comorbidities. In short, the three pilot phases include:

• pilot 1 – development of the prototype platform, device testing and usability/other relevant questionnaires (to be tested on 34 patients, 5 doctors and 4 caregivers)
• pilot 2 – module-based further platform improvement based on pilot 1 results (to be tested on 43 patients, 7 doctors and 4 caregivers)
• pilot 3 – final platform design, including exploration of its commercial potential

The team contribute the clinical view and expertise to the development of the platform and work in close co-operation with technical peers who will take care of the software integration part of the project. Pre-pilot needs assessment and post-pilot findings evaluation will round off all pilot-related work.

The people involved in the implementation of the PROCare4Life project consist of a team of 17 senior and junior neurologists, including auxiliary staff in charge with data management and protection issues.

The team work in close co-operation with more than 50 patients, caregivers and health professionals constituting the main target groups of the project, including Patient Associations/Support Groups.

• Contribution to the definition of ethics requirements (WP1)
• Contribution to the identification of user/system requirements, including the identification of cultural/environmental issues via interviews with patients, caregivers and health professionals (WP2)
• Contributions to user pattern analysis and to the definition of integrated care pathways (WP3)
• Contribution to the implementation of real life pilots (design and implementation) – pilot 1 and 2 (including protocol design, pilot 1-related documents referred for approval by the ethics committee, recruitment manual, procurement of devices such as sensors, mini-PCs, smartwatches and smartphones, initiation of the device configuration procedure together with the technical partners, initiation of the recruitment procedure, initiation of pilot 2 design).
• Contribution to project management – technical progress monitoring and reporting (WP 9)