The kick-off meeting for the SCIROCCO Exchange project was held on 6 and 7 February in Luxembourg. 
Fourteen partners make up the Scirocco Exchange consortium, including Kronikgune and Osakidetza. Nine European regions are involved: Germany, Flanders, the Basque Country, Scotland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Vilnius, Poland and Puglia.
The main objective of the project, which is funded by the 3rd EC Health Programme, is to support healthcare and social care authorities to adopt and scale-up integrated care. The study will run for 32 months. Over this time, the assets required for the region to adopt evidence-based integrated care will be provided. Similarly, personalised knowledge transfer and planning for improvements in integrated care will be encouraged.
A Knowledge Management Hub (KMH) will be created for this purpose. This tool will connect existing integrated care assets with the specific needs of the participating regions.
In the regional context, Osakidetza will investigate how to transfer knowledge in a personalised way. Kronikgune will lead the work package on identifying existing assets to implement integrated care into healthcare systems. This work package pursues three main objectives: mapping assets, facilitating their integration with the hub, and enabling the customisation of the required assets from each region.
The main expected outcome of Scirocco Exchange is better access to evidence on integrated care and tools available to potential adopters, as well as an improved understanding of how regions should prepare for the implementation of integrated care.
