For patients
OPTIMA’s vision
Every patient should have access to the most up-to-date treatments and therapies, that are tailored to them.
We want to transform cancer care in Europe by giving patients and their healthcare providers the tools to make decisions together. By using new computer technologies, we will make clinical information more accessible. We will combine information from different clinical guidelines (guidance given to healthcare professionals about the best way to diagnose and treat people living with disease) in these tools to personalise treatment for each patient and their needs. Using these tools, patients and healthcare professionals can make better decisions together.
What OPTIMA is aiming for?
We aim to create a central database with access to data from all over Europe. This is because, easy access to a large amount of health information can help answer important questions about prostate, breast and lung cancer. This will deepen our knowledge about issues that are not covered by clinical guidelines or do not have strong evidence to support the guidance.
We will also create a support tool that will fill in the gaps in the guidelines to help patients and healthcare professionals to make decisions. The support tool will be based on national and international guidelines and will be updated regularly.
Which challenges
is OPTIMA addressing?
Challenges for patients
Diagnosis and treatment methods are constantly developing, but with this, the choice of how to diagnose and treat can become more complicated. This can make it difficult for patients to understand their options and make it harder to come to a joint decision with their healthcare professional.
Challenges for clinicians
The large amount of rapidly changing information on new diagnostic tests, treatments and guidelines poses a challenge for healthcare professionals when deciding the best treatment for their patients.
Challenges for pharmaceutical companies & regulators
Pharmaceutical companies and regulators need to understand real-world treatment outcomes of new drugs outside of the research environment. This has become a vital part of drug development, regulatory approval and making drugs available to consumers.
Challenges for healthcare payers (people or organisations that pay for healthcare that are not patients, such as national health services or insurers)
There is a lack of reliable, real-world (not in a clinical trial) evidence about the safety and effectiveness of treatments. This makes it difficult for healthcare payers to make quick decisions and manage their resources.
Challenges for healthcare ecosystems
The healthcare ecosystem includes patients and their healthcare teams along with all other groups that make up the full healthcare system. Recently the way healthcare systems operate has shifted from organisation-focused to patient-focused healthcare. This means that patients are now more involved in their diagnosis and treatment. This is especially true with more access to digital healthcare and has meant that systems need to adapt to keep up.
Principles & key objectives of OPTIMA
Availability to all relevant stakeholders
We will create a catalogue of data by gathering real-world datasets from European electronic health records (EHR) and other types of real-world data.
Trust and acceptability to stakeholders such as healthcare professionals and patients
We will develop a guideline decision-support toolset that will be regularly updated for the three priority conditions: prostate, breast, and lung cancer.
Real added value for all stakeholders
- We will use advanced methods such as artificial intelligence (AI) to improve our knowledge.
- We will ensure the platforms we develop will be long-lasting by supporting business models based on paying users.
Sustainability after the project
We will develop a secure, sustainable and valuable platform. It will be a central host for management tools, learning tools, AI systems and guideline-based decision support tools.
Availability to all relevant stakeholders
Real added value for all stakeholders
We will ensure the platforms we develop will be long-lasting by supporting business models based on paying users.
Sustainability after the project
Trust & acceptability to stakeholders such as healthcare professionals & patients
The OPTIMA patient advisory group
ELF has established a Public Patient Advisory Group (PPAG) for OPTIMA. We will work together with the European Cancer Patient Coalition (ECPC) to manage the group over the lifetime of the project.
The patient advisory group will be involved in:
- Providing feedback and suggestions during all aspects of the project’s journey
- Activities that impact communities of people living with lung, breast and prostate cancer
- Helping to create education material aimed at communities affected by lung, breast and prostate cancer and those who could be affected in the future
- Helping to disseminate the outcomes of the project.
The patient advisory group will meet online a minimum of three times per year.
