#Nephrohero: Doctor.One became the winner of the first competition within the Warsaw Health Innovation Hub
A Polish start-up developing a platform for permanent medical care, will engage family doctors and patients to design and test an application for early diagnosis and treatment of patients with chronic kidney disease. The project, implemented by the Doctor.One start-up, was selected in the call entitled #Nephrohero - Race against the invisible enemy. The winner will receive a grant for the development and implementation of a pilot solution that may be an opportunity for thousands of patients.
In Poland, over 4 million people suffer from chronic kidney disease (CKD), of which only 200,000 are diagnosed patients. It is the second most common chronic disease in the country and, if left untreated, can even lead to kidney failure. The winning team implementing the project will receive a grant of PLN 400,000 from the initiator and founder of the competition - AstraZeneca, as well as consulting support from the public institutions and EIT Health InnoStars. The project will last approximately 12 months.
- The winning project is in line with one of the main priorities of the Warsaw Heath Innovation Hub, which is the use of e-services in the field of digital health to optimize patient treatment. The implementation of practical system solutions to improve the diagnostics process, especially in primary health care facilities, can significantly change the quality of services provided, says Mr. Radosław Sierpiński, President of the Medical Research Agency.
Doctor.One, operating in a consortium, plans to engage family doctors and nephrology specialists to design a model of personalized, ongoing care for people at risk or early stage of CKD and test it on a group of 100 patients. At the beginning, each project participant will receive a comprehensive health check, including a package of tests agreed with the medical team. Then the patient will be under constant care conducted by a trusted doctor. If necessary, the patient will also have access to telemedicine and stationary consultations. After nine months of care, the patien will receive a health check and follow-up. On the basis of the pilot, assumptions and recommendations for further actions will be developed, as well as the implementation of such an approach to basic medical care in Poland.
- We hope that the winning project, thanks to our support, will find widespread use in medical care, thus increasing access to proper and early diagnostics for millions of Poles. We expect the first effects and recommendations in the fall of 2023, although in the meantime we will actively support the winning team. We are glad that, as AstraZeneca, we were able to launch the first competition of this type as part of the Warsaw Health Innovation Hub and perhaps pave the way for other similar projects. WHIH is an excellent example of how, thanks to public-private cooperation, we can act to improve the Polish health care system – emphasizes Mr. Wiktor Janicki, president of AstraZeneca Poland, the initiator and sponsor of the competition.
The evaluation of applications for the first competition of the Warsaw Health Innovation Hub were assessed by the expert panels composed of representatives of, inter alia, The Ministry of Health, the Medical Research Agency, the National Health Fund, the e-Health Center, the Office for Registration of Medicinal Products, Medical Devices and Biocidal Products, and the Patent Office. The evaluators were primarily guided by the criterion of innovation, quality of the patient care offered, and the probability of conducting a pilot program within 12 months.
- Our project assumes that the people from the risk group and in the early stages of CKD will get individualized, direct and constant care of a doctor who knows the patient. Such a model of care will allow doctors to support patients in making changes in their lifestyle on daily basis and, if necessary, to intervene quickly medically. We believe that in this way, medics can slow down the progression of the disease - says Tomasz Rudolf, Doctor.One's co-founder and president. As Mr. Rudols emphasizes, today's model of medical care is based on reactive, patient-initiated medical appointments, between which patients are often left alone with questions and challenges related to the disease or an attempt to change their lifestyle. - Accidental consultations with other physicians disrupt the continuity of care and make it difficult for specialists to proactively guide patients with CKD and monitor the effects of treatment. Our project can solve this problem. We are glad that thanks to the win the competition we will be able to implement it - he adds.
The other consortium members, apart from Doctor.One, are the ALAB laboratories chain and the Lazarski University. The grant is funded by AstraZeneca. The operator of the competition is EIT Health InnoStars.