The 11th edition of the National Congress of Chronic Patient Healthcare was held at the Merida Conference and Exhibition Centre from 7 to 8 March.

The event brought together health and social services professionals, health managers and patients under the motto “Expanding Horizons” to discuss the future of chronic diseases. It is estimated that at present, 3%-4% of the population are multimorbid patients; i.e. patients who suffer from several chronic diseases at the same time.

Thus, the eleventh edition of the congress addressed issues such as new forms of communication, e-health, the development of comprehensive healthcare plans, and personalised therapy, among others. The Exhibition Centre also hosted the 6th Active Patient National Conference at the same time, which was open to citizens, social services and healthcare professionals.

Here, at a space reserved for clinical cases and research projects, Kronikgune presented the European projects ACT@Scale, Scirocco, Chrodis-Plus and C3-Cloud. These are projects related to the main strategic lines set out to address chronicity in which Osakidetza has also been involved.

Regarding the ACT@Scale project, the implementation and scaling-up of a healthcare pathway for multimorbid patients was showcased in an oral presentation and a poster. 12 Integrated Healthcare Organisations (IHOs), the Integrated Care and Chronicity Service (SIAC), the Gorliz Hospital General Management, the Santa Marina Hospital and the Osakidetza Health Council have all taken part in this recently completed study. They have worked together to redefine the integrated healthcare pathway for multimorbid patients and the empowerment of these patients and/or carers. This pathway is expected to be scaled-up to all Osakidetza organisations over the coming months.

The “Scirocco Tool” from the Scirocco project was also displayed. It is used to analyse the maturity of a healthcare system to implant integrated care. This project was completed in October 2018 and aimed to scale-up and transfer Good Practices in Integrated Care to different European regions. The tool will be refined in the new project Scirocco Exchange, which recently got under way.

Kronikgune also exhibited the “Implementation Strategy” developed under the Chrodis Plus Joint Action. This guide describes the methods and techniques to facilitate the adoption, implementation and sustainability of the actions undertaken in the project’s pilot regions.

Finally, the C3-Cloud project was presented, the purpose of which is to provide multimorbid patients with personalised healthcare plans supported by ICT (Information and Communications Technology). The exhibition served to show the two digital platforms that will be used during the intervention, through which professionals can develop personalised healthcare plans in collaboration with the patients and/or carers.

To download all speeches and congress communications, click here: http://www.congresocronicos.org/