THALEA stands for “Telemonitoring and Telemedicine System for the demand of Hospitals need in Early Warning of Live Threatening Conditions Assisted by innovative ICT for Life saving co-morbid patients in Europe As part of a Patient personalised care programme of the EU”. The projects aim to make patient care in the ICU (intensive care unit) even safer through additional, computer-assisted monitoring.
THALEA and THALEA II are the first project tandem in the area of innovative public procurement where, building on the results of pre-commercial procurement (PCP) in the first step, software products are purchased in a second step in the framework of public procurement of innovative solutions (PPI).
Background
Telemedicine is gaining ground. However, the monitoring of patients in intensive care units has so far not been possible because of different patient information systems from a number of manufacturers. The expedient (and economical) agglomeration of data from several intensive care units in smaller hospitals is therefore still a vision of the future.
Objective
In order to secure the best possible patient care, all data concerning a patient’s condition are to be brought together by means of a software solution, the “cockpit”. The data agglomerated with the help of intelligent software tools allow dual control from two perspectives: That of the attending physician at the patient’s bed and that of the physician monitoring all patients on a screen.
Results
Thanks to two EU-funded projects coordinated by Aachen Telemedicine Centre at University Hospital RWTH Aachen, it has been possible in recent years to develop solutions that are now to be established in the marketplace.
PCP – Pre-Commercial Procurement: From January 2015 to October 2016, three different prototypes for telemonitoring and telemedicine systems were developed in the framework of the THALEA project and tested and evaluated in practice. The project was funded under the EU’s 7th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development.
PPI – Public Procurement of Innovative Solutions: THALEA II, the successor project, started in June 2016, with the purpose of purchasing such innovative telemonitoring and telemedicine systems. The project is funded under Horizon 2020, the current EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation.