The third face-to-face meeting of the ValueCare Consortium was planned to take place in Rijeka, Croatia in July. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was decided to meet online instead of face-to-face in Rijeka. Furthermore, because of the summer period, the decision was made to move the meeting from July to September. So on the third of September, right after the holiday period, we had a full day of interesting presentations and discussions about the project.
The meeting day started with some general project management updates. First, the project coordinator contacted the EU project officer to inform her about the progress made in the project, also considering the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on project activities. Second, EMC together with KVC has worked during the summer months on preparing the call for application for recruiting External Advisory Board members. On September 1, it was published online on the ValueCare website!
After this, there were discussions about the impact and implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on the project, especially regarding the focus groups; we all agreed that safety of the participants comes first!
The meeting continued with presentations from each of the remaining 8 work packages.
First, the Value Based Health Care course by professor Jan Hazelzet that took place in August was discussed. Those who participated in the course shared their main learnings and what else they would like to learn. Afterwards, there were discussions on the virtual coach chatbot, which is going to be a part of the final technology solution. The co-design sessions were touched upon and the IT partners explained the different technological solutions.
This was followed by an update from each pilot site. After the lunch break, we continued with work package 5 and discussed the evaluation framework and questionnaire. A presentation was then given on the website, our Twitter account, the animation videos and the development of printing materials. Another interesting topic followed; the exploitation, innovation and business models of the project. There were discussions regarding understandings of innovation, as it is of course a very important part of the project.
Finally, it was time for the last work package to present about ethics and data protection. In particular, updates on the data management plan were given. The day was not finished yet! We did a short evaluation round with all partners before closing the consortium meeting.
In conclusion, it was a busy day! All partners were actively engaged in discussing the project activities and challenges. With continued excitement and new ideas we proceed with the activities of the project.
