Clinicians, researchers and technicians from seven European nations met in Thessaloniki, Greece, for the kick-off meeting of a new EU funded Horizon2020 project: MyPal on 17 to 18 January 2019.
MyPal, titled: Advanced patient-reported outcome systems in the palliative care of adults and children with cancer, is coordinated by Dr Vassilis Koutkias and his team based at the Centre for Research & Technology Hellas (CERTH).
The project will develop and test innovative digital technologies – apps and games – applied to patient-reported outcome (PRO) systems for adults and children with cancer and palliative care needs and will run for 42 months from January 2019.
The interventions developed by MyPal aim to empower cancer patients and their family members throughout the disease trajectory by enabling better communication of their changing needs as their condition fluctuates over time and communicating these to their professional caregivers.
We anticipate that this will provide more timely and accurate information to professionals enabling them to respond more effectively so improving wellbeing and overall quality of life, including social functioning.
The kick off meeting was an opportunity for all partners to outline their roles in the project and to begin to set up the systems we will need for working together efficiently – given the wide geographical spread of the organisations involved.
Nations involved in the project include Greece, Italy, the Czech Republic, Germany, Sweden and the UK. We also welcomed organisational input from the European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC) and the International Children’s Palliative Care Network (ICPCN), which will assist in the dissemination of MyPal results.
The meeting was a great opportunity for us to get to know each other through the opportunities we had for informal networking in between work sessions and in the evening.
We will provide regular updates and news about MyPal in these pages and on our other social media platforms, so follow us and keep informed!
CERTH Building
Kick-off Meeting Room
