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Networking

Our vision is to establish a robust ecosystem of initiatives, where the combined strength of each project contributes to the overarching goal of advancing healthcare and well-being. By pooling our resources, knowledge, and expertise, we believe in the potential for significant benefits both for the collaborative cluster and the individual projects involved.

Networking projects funded under the call HORIZON-HLTH-2022-STAYHLTH-01-04

STRATIFYHF

STRATIFYHF

Coordinated by: Research and development center for bioengineering “BioIRC” d.o.o.

Artificial intelligence-based decision support system for risk stratification and early detection of heart failure in primary and secondary care.

Project manager: Prof. Nenad Filipovic (Research and development center for bioengineering “BioIRC” d.o.o.)

Heart failure (HF) is a pandemic currently affecting up to 15 million people in Europe. It is a complex clinical syndrome presenting with impaired heart function and is associated with poor quality of life for patients and high healthcare costs. 


There is a high clinical demand for novel artificial intelligence (AI) tools that will facilitate risk stratification, early diagnosis, and disease progression assessment in HF. Such tools are essential to allow prompt initiation of evidence-based prevention and treatment strategies which will improve patient quality of life, reduce morbidity and mortality and the HF burden on healthcare. 


STRATIFYHF aims to develop, validate and implement the first AI-based, decision support system (DSS) for risk stratification, early diagnosis, and disease progression assessment in HF to accommodate both primary and secondary care clinical needs. The DSS will integrate patient-specific demographic and clinical data using existing and novel technologies and establish AI-based tools for risk stratification and HF prediction using machine learning.


Additionally, a mobile app will be developed to empower patients to better manage their condition, and healthcare professionals to make informed decision in selection of evidence-based HF prevention and treatment strategies. 


Our multidisciplinary consortium, including three small-to-medium enterprises(SMEs) and two stakeholder organisations, will be guided by medical advice and regulatory and health technology experts to deliver the DSS as a medical class 2b device, reaching TRL 8 by the end of the project. 


STARTIFYHF will change the way in which HF is diagnosed today and thereby improve the quality and length of patients’ lives and lead to efficient and sustainable healthcare systems by reducing the number of HF-related hospital admissions and unnecessary referrals from primary to secondary care in Europe and beyond.


TRUSTING

TRUSTING

Coordinated by: University Medical Center Groningen

A TRUSTworthy speech-based AI monitorING system for the prediction of relapse in individuals with schizophrenia.

Project Coordinator: Prof. Iris Sommer (University Medical Center Groningen)

Psychotic disorders tend to have a waxing and waning course, with vulnerable persons being at risk for a relapse, especially when antipsychotic medication is no longer used. Such psychotic relapses can often be prevented, when a warning is received in time, so that the patient and their clinical team can take appropriate measures. 


Using artificial intelligence, we will analyse these speech fragments with the aim to recognise changes in speech. These changes may signal subtle tendencies of psychotic symptoms, such as hallucinations, delusions or thought disorder.


These can consist of the reinstatement of medication, psychotherapy, social interventions or a combination of those. Accurate and timely warning can thus make a huge difference. We hypothesise that spontaneous speech specifically holds the key to predict whether psychosis is imminent. In this project, we will ask people at risk of psychotic relapse to record short speech samples at regular intervals through a private and safe (remote) electronic environment. 


Our goal is to develop a user-friendly, trustworthy application that can be used from home to deliver a message when speech deviations predictive of psychotic relapse are detected. We hope that such an application will support people vulnerable for psychosis to live independently without fear of relapse with or without antipsychotic maintenance medication.


ARISTOTELES

ARISTOTELES

Coordinated by: Universita Degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia

Applying ARtificial Intelligence to Define clinical trajectorieS for personalized predicTiOn and early deTEctiOn of comorbidiTy and muLtimorbidiTy pattErnS.

Project Coordinator: Prof Giuseppe Boriani, MD, PhD, FEHRA, FESC
Full Professor of Cardiology, Director Post-Graduate School in Cardiology, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Modena, Italy

The ARISTOTELES project aims to build a multinational harmonized data platform to develop and implement novel artificial intelligence (AI) approaches for management of complex diseases, where progression and manifestations of comorbidities are via multiple interacting pathways. We aim to apply our novel approach to a population of great need due to atrial fibrillation (AF), but our outputs can be extended to other complex diseases with multimorbidity. 


By integrating AIs into clinical practice, our platform will form a backbone for acceptable, responsible, and respectful uses of patient/participant data to develop and validate novel trustworthy AI tools for more personalized risk assessment and management. 


This represents a paradigm shift in AF treatment, moving from a focus on individual risk factors and selected outcomes (eg. stroke) to a holistic approach, underpinning timely diagnostic and therapeutic interventions to reduce disease progression, disability, hospitalizations and mortality, as well as improve patient adherence to lifestyle modifications, medications, and other treatment regimens.


AI-POD

AI-POD

Coordinated by: Universitätsklinikum Bonn

Trustworthy AI Tools for the Prediction of Obesity Related Vascular Diseases.

Project Coordinator: Prof. Ulrike Attenberger, Universitätsklinikum Bonn

The AI-POD project is set to tackle the significant issue of obesity and related heart diseases across Europe, using the power of artificial intelligence (AI). With more than 436 million people in Europe dealing with weight problems, there is a clear and urgent need for a solution. Obese individuals are 50% more likely to die from heart diseases, and the cost of treating these conditions is a massive 210 billion Euros each year. 


Today, one of the biggest challenges is figuring out who among the obese population is most at risk of severe heart disease events. The methods we currently have aren't precise enough in predicting this, and there aren't any easy to use tools that apply these methods to help people manage their health.


That's where the AI-POD project comes in. The ultimate goal is to reduce the number of people suffering from heart diseases in Europe. To do this, the project aims to create an AI based score that can predict a person's risk of develop ing serious heart disease. This score will support doctors in making important decisions about patient care.


The project will develop AI tools that can be trusted by the people who need them most those struggling with obesity. These tools will use a mix of clinical, lab, and imaging data to turn disease risk into understandable and actionable health information. This can guide the steps needed for further diagnosis and treatment. All these AI tools will be tested in six clinical sites on heart disease patients.


In summary, the AI-POD project will push the limits of our understanding and management of heart disease in obese individuals. The two main outcomes of this project will be an AI based risk score and a clinical decision support system, which will he lp doctors assess and predict heart disease risks and complications. We will also develop an easy to use mobile app for citizens, that interacts with this system, empowering individuals to better monitor and manage their health.


The project aims to make life better for doctors and patients by streamlining workflows, and to reduce the strain on public health budgets by decreasing the number of obese individuals suffering from heart disease.

SmartCHANGE

SmartCHANGE

Coordinated by: Institut Jozef Stefan

AI-based long-term health risk evaluation for driving behaviour change strategies in children and youth.

Project Coordinator: Mitja Luštrek, Institut Jozef Stefan

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that more than 70% of deaths worldwide, including up to 90% of deaths in the European region, are due to non-communicable chronic diseases (NCDs). Most of these diseases share predisposing risk factors such as obesity and low levels of physical fitness resulting from unhealthy lifestyle (including insufficient physical activity, prolonged time spent in sedentary pursuits, poor nutrition, inappropriate sleep duration, cigarette smoking and abusive alcohol consumption).


Notwithstanding major improvements in the treatment of NCDs, primary prevention strategies that target healthy individuals are a more effective solution compared to prevention of adverse outcomes at early stages of the disease or treating a fully developed disease. Additionally, even though biological risk factors usually emerge in adulthood, childhood and adolescents are the ideal period for risk-lowering strategies based on behaviour changes.


Given that 80% of parents of inactive children wrongly consider their children to be sufficiently active, that existing risk calculation tools are used on adults, and that there is very little understanding about the appropriate level of specific behaviours even among health professionals (who are forced to rely on imperfect tools such as BMI), there is a deep need for tools to fight back against NCDs more effectively.


This is where SmartCHANGE comes in: the project's goal is to develop trustworthy, AI-based decision-support tools that will help health professionals and citizens reduce long-term risk of NCDs by accurately assessing the risk of children and teens and promoting optimised risk-lowering strategies.


By engaging users right from the start of the application's development and by applying machine learning to ethical datasets, the project will revolutionise health monitoring and wellness encouragement for youth, as well as preventing their risks of contracting diseases later in life.

VASCUL-AID

VASCUL-AID

Coordinated by: Stichting VUMC

Developing trustworthy artificial intelligence (AI)-driven tools to predict vascular disease risk and progression.

Project Coordinator: Kak Khee Yeung, Stichting VUMC

Information coming soon.

ARTILLERY

ARTILLERY

Coordinated by: Universitair Medisch Centrum Utrecht

Artificial Intelligence for early detection of non-communicable disease risk in people with breast cancer.

Project Coordinator: Helena M. Verkooijen, Universitair Medisch Centrum Utrecht

Information coming soon.

AI4HF

AI4HF

Coordinated by: Stichting Netherlands Heart Institute

Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence for Personalised Risk Assessment in Chronic Heart Failure.

Project Coordinator: Folkert Asselbergs, Stichting Netherlands Heart Institute

Information coming soon.

TRUSTroke

TRUSTroke

Coordinated by: Vall d’Hebron Institute of Research (VHIR)

Trustworthy AI for improvement of stroke outcomes.

Project Coordinator: Carlos Molina, Vall d’Hebron Institute of Research (VHIR)

Information coming soon.

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