Engineering, 64 million plan to digitise medical care

A digital, open and intelligent ecosystem to transform medicine from reactive to predictive, personalised and preventive. This is the challenge launched by Engineering, an Italian group with 14,000 employees in 21 countries, led by CEO Aldo Bisio, active in the digitisation of public and industrial processes, which has just obtained an Ipcei grant - the 'Important Projects of Common European Interest' - for the Opoh ('One Person One Health') project.

The plan, selected as part of the Tech4Cure initiative, is worth EUR 64 million, 70 per cent of which is supported by public funds and the rest by self-financing. The initiative is intended to rewrite the future of healthcare with advanced digital tools. The goal: to create an open, modular ecosystem for Clinical Decision Support (Cds), the digital tools that help physicians in clinical decision-making through artificial intelligence and structured data.

These tools, although fundamental, are often fragmented, not interoperable and difficult to integrate into clinical workflows. Today, doctors have mountains of data, constantly changing guidelines, and digital tools that are not always integrated with each other. The result: a quagmire that risks slowing down, rather than facilitating, clinical decisions. Opoh promises to bring order. With a modular and interoperable system of certified Clinical Decision Support, doctors will be able to receive targeted recommendations in real time, based on the patient's entire clinical history. An example? The family doctor who follows a patient with diabetes and hypertension: today he would have to consult separate guidelines, constantly updated, and juggle different software. Tomorrow, thanks to Opoh, he will find everything integrated in the electronic medical record, with timely and personalised recommendations.

In this context Engineering is among the four Italian companies to benefit from Ipcei funding under the Tech4Cure initiative: the second project of European interest, aimed at supporting innovation in medical devices. This is not the first time: the company is already involved in Ipcei-Cis, the European initiative to build a 'sovereign' cloud infrastructure, capable of responding to EU values. There, too, the aim is to create a common digital layer, from which the technological competitiveness of the Old Continent can be built.

"Opoh represents a paradigm shift in the way medicine of the future is conceived. With this project, we aim to bridge the gap between laboratory and ward in a concrete and structural way, fostering the rapid and effective transfer of scientific innovation into everyday clinical practice,' stressed Fabio Momola, Executive Vice President Engineering. 'It represents,' he adds, 'a concrete opportunity for doctors and patients. Doctors will be able to count on integrated and personalised recommendations, based on the patient's entire clinical and therapeutic history. At the same time, they will benefit from tailor-made, more effective, up-to-date and evidence-based care pathways".