Agder in EU funded Twinning project
Scottish health services have invited Agder and the Spanish region of Andalucia to take part in knowledge exchange activities on the topic of digital telecare and healthcare technology.
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“We are delighted that the work we do in Agder gets more recognition in Europe, and we look forward to learning more about how to utilise telecare and telehealth solutions to a greater extent”, says Ragni Mac Queen Leifson, administrative leader of the Centre for eHealth at the University of Agder.
Agder’s participation is coordinated by the Centre for eHealth, the Regional Coordination Group for eHealth and Healthcare Technology Agder (RKG eHealth), and Grimstad municipality.
The project Digital Telecare Twinning is funded by the EU project Digital Health Europe with around EUR 17,000. The project duration is nine months, and it will be completed in April 2021. The goal is to exchange knowledge and good practices with regards to eHealth.
Learning from each other
The project is directly connected to Agder’s status as a European Reference Site for active and healthy ageing, through the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing.
The initiative comes from Scotland’s National Health Service which invited the Spanish region of Andalucia along with Agder Region. These three partners will undertake knowledge exchange activities over a 6-month period.
“Scotland has established telemedicine centres, but they have been working analogically and are now deploying digitally enabled solutions. In Andalucia on the other hand, digital solutions have been widely distributed”, Leifson says.
In the region of Agder, we have come far in terms of safety technology and remote follow-up, says Kjetil Løyning who is the leader of eHealth Agder 2030.
“We have digitalised security alarms; we are working to implement safety technology and we are testing services in remote follow-up. But we still have a lot to learn, and in this project we get the opportunity to learn from the best in Europe”, Løyning says.
From analogue to digital
The Twinning project was planned before the coronavirus outbreak, and meetings and visits to the various locations will now have to be moved online.
“We have video meetings and conferences, but we hope we will be able to meet each other before the end of the project. We are going to create a roadmap together for future development, and we meet every fortnight”, says Leifson.
This short animation summarises the Twinning concept: