INCAREHEART was a Pre-commercial Procurement (PCP) of innovative ICT-enabled integrated care solutions to advance multidisciplinary health and care for patients with chronic heart failure (CHF).
Funded by the European Union as part of the Horizon 2020 programme, the project ran from 2021 to 2025, with innovative solutions provided from the market trialled with CHF service providers in five sites around Europe.
Through the PCP model, the five INCAREHEART procurers jointly procured R&D services to shape an ICT-enabled integrated care solution supporting the implementation of a comprehensive multidisciplinary and cross-organisational care and support model for people living with CHF across a fully integrated patient pathway.
The aim
Building on the siloed solutions for integrated healthcare delivery available on the market already, suppliers were challenged to integrate a comprehensive set of key features such as digital shared care plans and others into one modular ICT platform.
This would enable a breakthrough in effectively bringing different care providers, family caregivers, and patients into a shared, ICT-supported CHF care pathway that could cut across diagnosis, acute treatment, and care, as well as jointly managed long-term care.
Four years in fast forward
After an initial period to determine the needs of the PCP, INCAREHEART began a phase of open market consultation in order to determine what was available already, what types of companies were operating in this space, and how the PCP needed to be shaped in order to get the best possible response without losing sight of the project’s goals.
An online OMC workshop was held in each of the five pilot countries, with two additional webinars aimed at international audiences.
INCAREHEART then launched a matchmaking tool where potential applicants to the PCP could link up with each other to explore what kind of solutions they could offer to the INCAREHEART challenge.
The INCAREHEART open tender received a strong response from the market, and five suppliers were selected to enter Phase 1 of the project to create initial solution designs.
Three suppliers moved forward to Phase 2 to work on prototype testing, and finally Phase 3 began with two suppliers, CareCardia and CORRAL, further developing their solution and testing it at the four pilot sites.
The suppliers
The CareCardia solution seeks to address the ‘Homer’s Odyssey’ that CHF patients face in managing their condition due to the pitfalls and gaps in communication while dealing with multiple healthcare actors. CareCardia would integrate state-of-the-art, clinical evidence-based technologies into a single digital platform where CHF patients can manager their care and interact with their care providers.
Using remote health monitoring, AI-data processing, and an interoperable system that can share information and break down silos of communication, CareCardia would create a holistic platform for patients and their care providers.
The CareCardia consortium is led by Gnomon Informatics SA
The CORRAL project aims to create a digital solution for the continuous management and integrated care of chronic heart failure, covering early detection and secondary prevention, care and follow-up, and for supporting people to live with CHF at home. The platform would allow for monitoring of environmental, physical and psychological patient-related variables, and continuous analysis of recorded data and care team inputs by an artificial intelligence system to support decision making by care teams and the provision of personalized support and education interventions allowing patients to self-manage CHF.
Reflections from the Open Pilot Day
Just before the close of the project in spring 2025, the INCAREHEART team and the Corral and CareCardia solutions gathered in Thessaloniki, Greece, to reflect on the project.
Kallitsa Pantazi, Head of Department of European Projects and Synergies at Region of Central Macedonia and organiser of the event, said that she was proud to recognise such a diverse group of people to her home city of Thessaloniki to discuss the INCAREHEART and its potential impact beyond the project.
“Today was a great experience for us. We have been preparing for it for a very long time. It was a challenge for us to manage to gather all the project partners who are from all over Europe and Turkey, but to bring with us also interested citizens of the city, businesses, and the scientific community, so that we can discuss and see what happened in this project and how we worked through it.”
Åsa Hofsten, who coordinated the INCAREHEART project on behalf of Region Jämtland Härjedalen in Sweden, said that the PCP progress showed real potential.
“I am very much in favour of the PCP concept. Maybe we need to tweak it a little bit, but what I think is so good about it is that it involves small and medium sized businesses, and it's trying to involve them to create and to innovate and to reach a bigger market, which is, I think, really important for all the regions in Europe.”
Adriano Fernandes, Director of Innovation at Santa Casa da Misericórdia da Amadora in Portugal, that the project helped him to find hope for the challenges faced in his region by working through them with colleagues from across Europe.
“It was a feeling of not being alone, having the same concerns and the same worries. There is a greater force if we think together, if we feel that we are not alone, if we have more of these opportunities to reflect and to overcome. The obstacles that we are facing sometimes alone, together we can overcome it more easily, faster, and in a better way.”
Vincenzo De Luca from Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II in Italy agreed that the pan-European approach of the project helped to uncover deeper understanding than any one site going alone.
“The added value of this project is that we are testing the same solution in different sites, and this can highlight the differences in the challenge that we have to address in adoption of this kind of solution. And also we highlighted some new points that can be addressed in the future, like artificial intelligence.”
Pilar Gangas, an experienced EU project leader from the International Foundation for Integrated Care (IFIC), rated INCAREHEART very highly.
“I think it's an amazing project. The commitment, professionalism, and coordination have been really amazing. I've been participating in many EU funded projects, and I would say in INCAREHEART is one of the best, no doubt, for all these reasons and the final results are really very good. The idea of integrated care has been translated into something concrete by all the systems. What I really liked today was the interaction between the suppliers and the procurers, how we have all shared the challenges and achievements. I think it's a high quality project in which both the procurers and suppliers have tried their best, and the initial objectives have been achieved.
“Regarding the INCAREHEART programme, as well as similar telemetry programs, they certainly contribute to the more complete treatment of patients with heart failure. There is certainly a willingness on our part and we hope that the respective bodies will continue with such actions and programs. And we hope that they will offer the benefit that is expected in society and the health system in general, but above all, from our patients.”
Manthos Didagelos, from AHEPA Hospital in the Region of Central Macedonia, said that he hopes that the INCAREHEART project indicates a shift in approach to supporting people living with chronic heart failure.
