The Steering Committee meeting offers a glimpse to eCAN’s future
The Steering Committee meeting of the eCAN has been held today, January 30th, in a virtual format and with more than fifty participants belonging to beneficiary and affiliated entities. The meeting has served for the different work packages to present the progress achieved during the first five months of the Joint Action and share their planning until July 2023.
In addition, the reunion has also given rise to some important announcements, such as the interest of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to establish possible synergies with eCAN. These would include knowledge exchange and dissemination related to cancer inequalities or stakeholders’ involvement, as well as the possibility of getting support to improve the sustainability of the European project.
Apart from the OECD, members from the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA) have also intervened at the beginning, expressing their support to achieve the objectives of the JA.
The first stages of the JA
Following the order of the agenda, the vertical work packages Teleconsultation (WP5), Legal, ethical framework and cybersecurity (WP6), Telemonitoring (WP7) and Stakeholder engagement (WP8) have been the first ones to present, with a quick review of the work carried out in the first months and the challenges faced related to the project pilots and the identification of interested parties.
The following months have also been addressed by the entities belonging to Italy, Cyprus and Greece, where they have discussed the risks, gaps and opportunities that they expect to experience until the summer of 2023. Ultimately, each work package has pointed out the inputs needed from the rest of the eCAN participants during this period.
In the second part of the meeting, the transversal work packages Coordination (WP1), Communication (WP2), Evaluation (WP3) and Sustainability (WP4) have followed the same scheme, also delving into the status of their deliverables and the tasks to be developed until July. In addition, the Communication team has shown awaited features of the website, like the newsletter or the social networks accounts, as well as specific audio-visual materials designed to accompany important dates such as World Cancer Day, the 4th of February.
After the respective presentations of all the WP leaders and the final exchange of questions and answers between the different attendees, emphasis has been placed on the opportunities for collaboration between the JA areas and the need to strengthen the flow of multilateral communication between all the entities implied.
Milestones for the next months
The Joint Action “Strengthening eHealth including telemedicine and remote monitoring for health care systems for cancer prevention and care”, started in September 2022, has still a long way to go until its end at the final months of 2024.
However, this next five months will be crucial for its progress and evolution since many important milestones should be achieved: the Stakeholder analysis, the updated version of the Dissemination and Communication plan, the Progress Report, the pilot projects protocol and the start of the patients’ enrolment, etc.
Such progress will be presented in more detail at following Steering Committees.
