The ALIAS project is aimed at delivering and piloting two telemedicine-related services, more specifically:
Information provision: this service will allow healthcare professionals of any ALIAS hospital network to access information about a patient coming from any (other) ALIAS region, upon his/her consent, and
Advice querying: this service will allow any healthcare professional of the ALIAS hospital network using telemedicine tools to require expert advice on a patient under treatment, upon his/her consent.
Telecommunication tools will be conceived to be used both in a synchronous and an asynchronous way.
In order to achieve those goals, the ALIAS project is organised with a cascade approach articulated over four main phases: project preparation; service definition and development; Network creation and training; piloting and deployment.
Information provision: this service will allow healthcare professionals of any ALIAS hospital network to access information about a patient coming from any (other) ALIAS region, upon his/her consent, and
Advice querying: this service will allow any healthcare professional of the ALIAS hospital network using telemedicine tools to require expert advice on a patient under treatment, upon his/her consent.
Telecommunication tools will be conceived to be used both in a synchronous and an asynchronous way.
In order to achieve those goals, the ALIAS project is organised with a cascade approach articulated over four main phases: project preparation; service definition and development; Network creation and training; piloting and deployment.
The project preparation activity (WP1) has been a long process aimed at building consensus around the project idea, consolidating the partneship, preparing and submitting the project.
Dissemination and coordination activities (respectively WP3 and WP2) cover the entire execution of the project
ALIAS operational work packages are:
Dissemination and coordination activities (respectively WP3 and WP2) cover the entire execution of the project
ALIAS operational work packages are:
- WP4 Service definition consists of precisely identifying and defining the services expected of ALIAS.
It concerns two services: providing information and advice to healthcare professionals.
This work package is currently running, and user requirements are undergoing final adjustments. - WP5 Development and validation consists of defining the architecture and creating the software services of the virtual hospital network.
- WP6 Network creation and Training prepares the 8 participating hospitals to ensure the success of the operational pilot demonstration of the virtual hospital network.
- WP7 Piloting & Assessment will test and evaluate the practical application of the VH network in the 8 pilot hospitals involved in the project. The evaluation will assess user satisfaction of the prototype.
The ALIAS services will be used in everyday procedures to mimic the scenario that can be expected after full deployment of the Network. - WP8 Deployment will help reinforce the virtual hospital network, extending it to additional providers of the cooperation area and fostering the participation of additional Observers.
April 2012 – October 2012 (The last period)
During last months of the project, pilot sites activities have continued. Both ALIAS service have been used although in the period not too many cases of ALIAS patients looking for healthcare in a territory other than their region of origin and part of the ALIAS network occurred. The ALIAS second opinion tool has been used in a more consistent way. Three new hospitals, Treviglio and Gemona hospitals (IT) and Krankenhaus Dritter Orden Bavarian hospital (D), have declared their interest in joining the VHN, that has been enlarged accordingly. This new nodes have formalised their participation to the network subscribing the CoT and filling in the ALIAS security questionnaire for security self-assessment. ALIAS observers group has been enriched by the participation of two new observers, the Local Health Agency n.1 Triestina and the Province of Trento.
Particular attention has been dedicated on the consolidation of the business model on which basing the ALIAS deployment strategy, and to the design of the self-sustainability rules of the enlarged Virtual Hospital Network. Activities have been dedicated to the definition of a sound strategy for ALIAS results exploitation taking into account both the international dimension of the project and the willingness of some partners of deploying ALIAS results also in a local/territorial context.
Evaluation and assessement of pilot sites activities have been performed both using questionnaires and phone interviews. From the users (doctors) prospectives, the ALIAS VHN and related ICT based services have a good degree of acceptability between the community and are a usful tool to support and facilitate day by day medical practice. The evaluation has also pointed out the areas where the ALIAS solution and underlying organisation can be improved. Those areas are mostly in the field of social engineering and mutual trust enhancement. Creating trust between doctors should be fostered, which could either happen by creating a social network or even better by organizing joint events for physicians where they can exchange expertise and get to know each other.
The ALIAS final conference has been held in Milan on October 11th at Regione Lombardia premises. More than 60 persons attended the conference, all beloging from the healthcare sector. A number of expression of interests from some of the attendees have been rased to be admitted to the VHN. Their involvement to the ALIAS network will be ruled following the guidelines outlined in the ALIAS deployment and network enlargement strategy.
September 2011 – March 2012 (The sixth period)
The lunch of pilot sites activities in a real life setting has been the cornerstone of the current period. After the specifications and testing phase, all the 8 sites of the Virtual Hospital Network (Varese, Tolmezzo, Garmisch, Grenoble, Villach, Golnik, Izola, and Geneva) are operational enabling to deliver real services.
In this light, major effort has been done in increasing the awareness creation to promote ALIAS image and visibility towards main stakeholders in order to facilitate citizens interest in the project and new hospitals willingness of joining the Virtual Hospital Network. Each ALIAS hospital has started its patients recruitment policy, has finalised the preparation of doctors to be involved in pilot activities and has finalised the technical/organisational/legal infrastructure underlying ALIAS services use in the networked environment. ALIAS has been presented in several events and visibility has been given to it in several press publications.
The public event organised in Varese in October 2011 has captured the participation and interest of a consistent number of participants. First steps have been made for ALIAS Network enlargement and definition of project results deployment strategy including the Network self-sustainability.
Furthermore, technical activities have been dedicated to the fine tuning of the platform and services functioning and have seen a number of interactions between all the Hospitals of the Network to assist all nodes in the go-live phase. Under the organisational viewpoint, 3 documents dedicated to the definition of ALIAS operating procedures have been released (Users support and Manuals specifically conceived to ease and guide in the use of the two services).
A first version of a questionnaire to be used during the first step of the evaluation phase has been distributed to all partners. A discussion on ALIAS deployment, sustainability and network enlargement has begun and a first skeleton of the guidelines for setting up the sustainability of the service has been proposed.
Management activities have been carried out as planned and Information & Publicity has assisted to a particular vivacious semester.
March – August 2011 (The fifth period)
This period has been of great importance for the ALIAS testing phase preparation. In this framework, the main result achieved has been the lively participation of pilot hospitals in all ALIAS activities.
In particular, during the so called "alfa test" phase, all the hospital doctors involved have suggested appropriate enhancement of the ALIAS Platform and services. ALIAS operational procedures (WP6) have foreseen the planning of the training courses and preparation of training materials, finalization of common template for patient informed consent form and translation in all ALIAS languages, translation in all ALIAS languages of all the ALIAS Central System menus, patient recruitment strategy definition and agreement on the support materials to be used within each pilot hospitals (ALIAS poster, cards and leaflet).
In addition, the technical specifications have been finalised and included in the "Technical Specifications Report" (WP5) also including the ALIAS Security policy and auditing procedures. As mentioned above, the ALIAS Platform and services have been submitted to the "alfa test" during which 5 doctors belonging from different hospitals have fully tested the complete version of the ALIAS Central Service platform with the two services integrated for 20 days.
Feedbacks from the alfa testers have been integrated in the new release of the platform to enhance it. The database containing the directory of services, has been populated by each hospital by giving full details on the availability and characteristics of services supplied.
Information & Publicity activities have been largerly triggered both in terms of conference participation (Lasko – SI, "E-salus trans confinia sine finibus", European Federation for Medical Informatics Conference 2011; Toulouse – FR. 1st edition of "Symposium sur l'Ingénierie de l'Information Médicale", SIIM 2011), web site appearance and articles publication
September 2010 – February 2011 (The fourth period)
The period has foreseen the continuation of the activities referred to overall management and communication, functional, legal and technical specifications refinement and Virtual Hospital Network governance definition. Two deliverables on "Legal Framework for ALIAS services" and "ALIAS Services Specifications" have been issued. The outputs coming from these documents have been then used by the technical partners for guiding the design of ALIAS Central System (ACS) Platform and in the related technical development.
This has accompanied the project to a major achievement: the ACS Platform is online with 3 nodes of the Virtual Hospital connected and testing the ALIAS services (Grenoble, Villach and Garmisch).
Within this activity, the ALIAS Security Audit policy has been also developed.
By the other hand the "Technical Specifications Report" is under finalization. In parallel, activities related to ALIAS Virtual Network organization and governance (WP6) have started through the development of a contract framework ("Circle of Trust") which will ensure mutual recognition of safe and secure environment amongst the information systems of the networked hospitals. Furthermore, the "Online, dynamically updatable directory of services" has been finalised and plans for the training phase (for trainers and hospital professionals) have been proposed and shared between Participants and Finally the Mid Term Workshop took place in Lyon on 26.01.2011 with an audience of about 70 participants and the involvement of 3 regional Ministries of Lombardia, Rhône-Alpes and Carinthia, the French Alpine Space Contact Point and representatives from other EU healthcare projects. Additional workshops have been locally organised in Bavaria and Rhône-Alpes and media appearance has been ensured via articles on press.
March 2010 - September 2010 (The third period)
The period has foreseen the continuation of the activities related to management, information&publicity and Services Functional and Technical specs definition and the start of Network Creation & Training activities.
Functional specs work has been concentrated on deepening the legal analysis due to the clear influence of the regulatory framework and non-functional specs on services functionalities.
The output of this analysis have had a deep impact on the technical work: on the architecture design and identification of technologies suited to translate functional requirements in technical specs.
Technical choices have been also guided by the principle of facilitating ALIAS integration with the systems already in use in each pilot.
Within Network Creation & Training a survey has been performed on the existing eServices in each pilot site.
Its results have been used also to address some technical open points.
Management and Information&Publicity activities have been carried out as planned.
Moreover, the third period has been dedicated to the development of fundamental activities and fostering of collaboration between PPs.
The importance of the interrelations between ALIAS central workpackages has been more evident in terms of influence of each activity on the others.
All PPs have concentrated their effort on the enrichment and refinement of two deliverables: Legal constrains and Services specifications.
Technical partners have used the output of the above mentioned activities to properly design the ALIAS central system architecture and to be supported in technical choices related to the two services development.
This activity has been also fed by the first results achieved within the Network Creation & Training.
Two Project Steering Groups meetings and Technical Meetings have been held, in March and July in Genève and in Grenoble, one technical meeting has been held in Milan in June and a virtual meeting to check project progress has been held in July.
September 2009 – February 2010 (The second period)
The second period saw the continuation of the activities related to management (WP2), information&publicity (WP3), and the functional and technical specification definition of the services (WP4).
Several meetings were held with the twofold aim of properly advancing with ALIAS work and of consolidating the project partnership.
Part of the work concentrated on the analysis of the current state of Partners' IT systems in the healthcare sector and on a first description of services that will be deployed in the framework of ALIAS.
This has given the reference framework on which the analysis of ALIAS pilots regional/national legal framework focused, in order to identify major constraints related to services implementation. Moreover, Partners have started analysing the most suitable technical solutions to be used in the development of the ALIAS services to be compliant with user needs and the regulatory framework.
During the second period, some important results have been achieved.
Four deliverables have been finalised and approved, the Project Management and Quality Manual, the Project Logo and Newsletter 1, and the User requirements specification and scenarios description.
The first deliverable serves to facilitate cooperation among Participants in the ALIAS project by defining a set of rules for the organisation of the day-to-day cooperative work.
The Project Logo is currently used in all official documents and presentations related to ALIAS.
The users' requirements specification and scenarios description represents the first pillar on which functional and technical specification of the ALIAS services platform will be shaped.
Two Project Steering Groups meetings and project Technical Meetings have been held, the first in September, in Milano, together with the project kick off meeting and public presentation, the second in December in Udine.
February 2008 – August 2009 (The first period)
The first period of ALIAS activities has been dedicated to the fulfilment of a twofold objective.
On one side, effort has been dedicated to the preparation and submission of the project Expression of Interest (EoI) and, subsequently, of the AF.
This activity has consisted of a number of online and face-to-face meetings to complete and consolidate the project partnership, joint actions to build consensus around the project idea, frequent and constructive contacts with the Programme National Contact Points.
Once the EoI has been approved, the full project Application Form was submitted, enlarging the current partnership to Germany.
On the other side, this first period of activities has been dedicated to the launch of the project itself.
Activities related to management, information and publicity, and ALIAS service definition have started in a timely and organised manner avoiding dangerous deviations which might affect, since the beginning, the achievement of project objectives.
This first period saw the start and conclusion of ALIAS WP1 and the start of WP2, WP3 and WP4.
Activities performed within WP1 mainly consisted of the preparation and submission of ALIAS EoI and, subsequently, AF.
The main result achieved within this WP has been the completion of the ALIAS AF, its timely submission and the award of grants.
The activities performed within WP2, WP3 and WP4 have been mainly dedicated to the launch of project activities.
For WP2 August has been dedicated to the organisation of the ALIAS kick off meeting, the project's public presentation, the first PSG and TC meetings.
For WP3, first contacts with journalists have been established and a professional communication agency, which can follow the ALIAS logo production, has been identified.
WP4 has dedicated its effort to the preparation of its first meeting and related material.
All WPs ongoing during the reporting period saw the full and active involvement of all project participants.
During last months of the project, pilot sites activities have continued. Both ALIAS service have been used although in the period not too many cases of ALIAS patients looking for healthcare in a territory other than their region of origin and part of the ALIAS network occurred. The ALIAS second opinion tool has been used in a more consistent way. Three new hospitals, Treviglio and Gemona hospitals (IT) and Krankenhaus Dritter Orden Bavarian hospital (D), have declared their interest in joining the VHN, that has been enlarged accordingly. This new nodes have formalised their participation to the network subscribing the CoT and filling in the ALIAS security questionnaire for security self-assessment. ALIAS observers group has been enriched by the participation of two new observers, the Local Health Agency n.1 Triestina and the Province of Trento.
Particular attention has been dedicated on the consolidation of the business model on which basing the ALIAS deployment strategy, and to the design of the self-sustainability rules of the enlarged Virtual Hospital Network. Activities have been dedicated to the definition of a sound strategy for ALIAS results exploitation taking into account both the international dimension of the project and the willingness of some partners of deploying ALIAS results also in a local/territorial context.
Evaluation and assessement of pilot sites activities have been performed both using questionnaires and phone interviews. From the users (doctors) prospectives, the ALIAS VHN and related ICT based services have a good degree of acceptability between the community and are a usful tool to support and facilitate day by day medical practice. The evaluation has also pointed out the areas where the ALIAS solution and underlying organisation can be improved. Those areas are mostly in the field of social engineering and mutual trust enhancement. Creating trust between doctors should be fostered, which could either happen by creating a social network or even better by organizing joint events for physicians where they can exchange expertise and get to know each other.
The ALIAS final conference has been held in Milan on October 11th at Regione Lombardia premises. More than 60 persons attended the conference, all beloging from the healthcare sector. A number of expression of interests from some of the attendees have been rased to be admitted to the VHN. Their involvement to the ALIAS network will be ruled following the guidelines outlined in the ALIAS deployment and network enlargement strategy.
September 2011 – March 2012 (The sixth period)
The lunch of pilot sites activities in a real life setting has been the cornerstone of the current period. After the specifications and testing phase, all the 8 sites of the Virtual Hospital Network (Varese, Tolmezzo, Garmisch, Grenoble, Villach, Golnik, Izola, and Geneva) are operational enabling to deliver real services.
In this light, major effort has been done in increasing the awareness creation to promote ALIAS image and visibility towards main stakeholders in order to facilitate citizens interest in the project and new hospitals willingness of joining the Virtual Hospital Network. Each ALIAS hospital has started its patients recruitment policy, has finalised the preparation of doctors to be involved in pilot activities and has finalised the technical/organisational/legal infrastructure underlying ALIAS services use in the networked environment. ALIAS has been presented in several events and visibility has been given to it in several press publications.
The public event organised in Varese in October 2011 has captured the participation and interest of a consistent number of participants. First steps have been made for ALIAS Network enlargement and definition of project results deployment strategy including the Network self-sustainability.
Furthermore, technical activities have been dedicated to the fine tuning of the platform and services functioning and have seen a number of interactions between all the Hospitals of the Network to assist all nodes in the go-live phase. Under the organisational viewpoint, 3 documents dedicated to the definition of ALIAS operating procedures have been released (Users support and Manuals specifically conceived to ease and guide in the use of the two services).
A first version of a questionnaire to be used during the first step of the evaluation phase has been distributed to all partners. A discussion on ALIAS deployment, sustainability and network enlargement has begun and a first skeleton of the guidelines for setting up the sustainability of the service has been proposed.
Management activities have been carried out as planned and Information & Publicity has assisted to a particular vivacious semester.
March – August 2011 (The fifth period)
This period has been of great importance for the ALIAS testing phase preparation. In this framework, the main result achieved has been the lively participation of pilot hospitals in all ALIAS activities.
In particular, during the so called "alfa test" phase, all the hospital doctors involved have suggested appropriate enhancement of the ALIAS Platform and services. ALIAS operational procedures (WP6) have foreseen the planning of the training courses and preparation of training materials, finalization of common template for patient informed consent form and translation in all ALIAS languages, translation in all ALIAS languages of all the ALIAS Central System menus, patient recruitment strategy definition and agreement on the support materials to be used within each pilot hospitals (ALIAS poster, cards and leaflet).
In addition, the technical specifications have been finalised and included in the "Technical Specifications Report" (WP5) also including the ALIAS Security policy and auditing procedures. As mentioned above, the ALIAS Platform and services have been submitted to the "alfa test" during which 5 doctors belonging from different hospitals have fully tested the complete version of the ALIAS Central Service platform with the two services integrated for 20 days.
Feedbacks from the alfa testers have been integrated in the new release of the platform to enhance it. The database containing the directory of services, has been populated by each hospital by giving full details on the availability and characteristics of services supplied.
Information & Publicity activities have been largerly triggered both in terms of conference participation (Lasko – SI, "E-salus trans confinia sine finibus", European Federation for Medical Informatics Conference 2011; Toulouse – FR. 1st edition of "Symposium sur l'Ingénierie de l'Information Médicale", SIIM 2011), web site appearance and articles publication
September 2010 – February 2011 (The fourth period)
The period has foreseen the continuation of the activities referred to overall management and communication, functional, legal and technical specifications refinement and Virtual Hospital Network governance definition. Two deliverables on "Legal Framework for ALIAS services" and "ALIAS Services Specifications" have been issued. The outputs coming from these documents have been then used by the technical partners for guiding the design of ALIAS Central System (ACS) Platform and in the related technical development.
This has accompanied the project to a major achievement: the ACS Platform is online with 3 nodes of the Virtual Hospital connected and testing the ALIAS services (Grenoble, Villach and Garmisch).
Within this activity, the ALIAS Security Audit policy has been also developed.
By the other hand the "Technical Specifications Report" is under finalization. In parallel, activities related to ALIAS Virtual Network organization and governance (WP6) have started through the development of a contract framework ("Circle of Trust") which will ensure mutual recognition of safe and secure environment amongst the information systems of the networked hospitals. Furthermore, the "Online, dynamically updatable directory of services" has been finalised and plans for the training phase (for trainers and hospital professionals) have been proposed and shared between Participants and Finally the Mid Term Workshop took place in Lyon on 26.01.2011 with an audience of about 70 participants and the involvement of 3 regional Ministries of Lombardia, Rhône-Alpes and Carinthia, the French Alpine Space Contact Point and representatives from other EU healthcare projects. Additional workshops have been locally organised in Bavaria and Rhône-Alpes and media appearance has been ensured via articles on press.
March 2010 - September 2010 (The third period)
The period has foreseen the continuation of the activities related to management, information&publicity and Services Functional and Technical specs definition and the start of Network Creation & Training activities.
Functional specs work has been concentrated on deepening the legal analysis due to the clear influence of the regulatory framework and non-functional specs on services functionalities.
The output of this analysis have had a deep impact on the technical work: on the architecture design and identification of technologies suited to translate functional requirements in technical specs.
Technical choices have been also guided by the principle of facilitating ALIAS integration with the systems already in use in each pilot.
Within Network Creation & Training a survey has been performed on the existing eServices in each pilot site.
Its results have been used also to address some technical open points.
Management and Information&Publicity activities have been carried out as planned.
Moreover, the third period has been dedicated to the development of fundamental activities and fostering of collaboration between PPs.
The importance of the interrelations between ALIAS central workpackages has been more evident in terms of influence of each activity on the others.
All PPs have concentrated their effort on the enrichment and refinement of two deliverables: Legal constrains and Services specifications.
Technical partners have used the output of the above mentioned activities to properly design the ALIAS central system architecture and to be supported in technical choices related to the two services development.
This activity has been also fed by the first results achieved within the Network Creation & Training.
Two Project Steering Groups meetings and Technical Meetings have been held, in March and July in Genève and in Grenoble, one technical meeting has been held in Milan in June and a virtual meeting to check project progress has been held in July.
September 2009 – February 2010 (The second period)
The second period saw the continuation of the activities related to management (WP2), information&publicity (WP3), and the functional and technical specification definition of the services (WP4).
Several meetings were held with the twofold aim of properly advancing with ALIAS work and of consolidating the project partnership.
Part of the work concentrated on the analysis of the current state of Partners' IT systems in the healthcare sector and on a first description of services that will be deployed in the framework of ALIAS.
This has given the reference framework on which the analysis of ALIAS pilots regional/national legal framework focused, in order to identify major constraints related to services implementation. Moreover, Partners have started analysing the most suitable technical solutions to be used in the development of the ALIAS services to be compliant with user needs and the regulatory framework.
During the second period, some important results have been achieved.
Four deliverables have been finalised and approved, the Project Management and Quality Manual, the Project Logo and Newsletter 1, and the User requirements specification and scenarios description.
The first deliverable serves to facilitate cooperation among Participants in the ALIAS project by defining a set of rules for the organisation of the day-to-day cooperative work.
The Project Logo is currently used in all official documents and presentations related to ALIAS.
The users' requirements specification and scenarios description represents the first pillar on which functional and technical specification of the ALIAS services platform will be shaped.
Two Project Steering Groups meetings and project Technical Meetings have been held, the first in September, in Milano, together with the project kick off meeting and public presentation, the second in December in Udine.
February 2008 – August 2009 (The first period)
The first period of ALIAS activities has been dedicated to the fulfilment of a twofold objective.
On one side, effort has been dedicated to the preparation and submission of the project Expression of Interest (EoI) and, subsequently, of the AF.
This activity has consisted of a number of online and face-to-face meetings to complete and consolidate the project partnership, joint actions to build consensus around the project idea, frequent and constructive contacts with the Programme National Contact Points.
Once the EoI has been approved, the full project Application Form was submitted, enlarging the current partnership to Germany.
On the other side, this first period of activities has been dedicated to the launch of the project itself.
Activities related to management, information and publicity, and ALIAS service definition have started in a timely and organised manner avoiding dangerous deviations which might affect, since the beginning, the achievement of project objectives.
This first period saw the start and conclusion of ALIAS WP1 and the start of WP2, WP3 and WP4.
Activities performed within WP1 mainly consisted of the preparation and submission of ALIAS EoI and, subsequently, AF.
The main result achieved within this WP has been the completion of the ALIAS AF, its timely submission and the award of grants.
The activities performed within WP2, WP3 and WP4 have been mainly dedicated to the launch of project activities.
For WP2 August has been dedicated to the organisation of the ALIAS kick off meeting, the project's public presentation, the first PSG and TC meetings.
For WP3, first contacts with journalists have been established and a professional communication agency, which can follow the ALIAS logo production, has been identified.
WP4 has dedicated its effort to the preparation of its first meeting and related material.
All WPs ongoing during the reporting period saw the full and active involvement of all project participants.
