Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Dermtest (An empowering toolkit for general practitioners to prevent, detect and treat melanoma (Dermtest))
Período documentado: 2015-06-01 hasta 2015-11-30
The vision for the toolkit was developed further and evolved to the understanding that the whole patient process view is needed and an integrated solution for prevention and detection has to take into account also possibilities to personalize melanoma risk screening with other technologies and health data. Different financing models are still needed to make use of stimuli for keeping patients healthy – in the long run, costs need to be transferred from late stage treatment to early detection. This will help to achieve cost-efficiency and reduce melanoma mortality.
Further developments have been prioritized and will show, what would the impact be on a system/region level and whether Dermtest can further personalize melanoma risk screening with the solution, for even better accuracy and quality.
There are still several barriers in the system with regard to regulations, financing, information systems and organization of different health systems. Based on 4 countries with different health systems, we developed an approach to tackle these barriers in a systematic way in order to disrupt the way melanoma patients are managed and eventually lower melanoma mortality in Europe. The developed business plan prioritized the development and market access activities, as well as proposed indications of need for investments and resources for that with evaluations on scalability, sustainability and break-even expectations.
Dermtest solves a problem many health systems have in terms of melanoma mortality rates due to lack of early diagnosis. The main societal implications from Dermtest are the reduction in deaths to melanoma and other skin cancers and the prioritization of early detection in the dermatologist workflow. From the patient perspective Dermtest removes the need to travel for expert consultation and get the results 2-10 times faster for peace of mind and earlier treatment. Dermtest will be able to improve accuracy and increase cost-efficiency.
Dermtest also provides an example of good communication between primary care and secondary care, a positive business case without excess bureaucracy in healthcare and cross-border care and a novel example of using the technology existent in a sufficient manner. It shows the impact of awareness building and communication in disease prevention and can provide a possibility for specialist second opinion across borders and thus provide higher quality, better access, experience sharing in the fight against melanoma.