Deirdre Clune and Jim Daly to attend the 2019 ADVOCATE conference in UCC

The EU H2020 ADVOCATE [Added Value for Oral Care] project team will today launch its first findings on the development of a new model for oral healthcare at an International gathering in the Aula Maxima in UCC.

ADVOCATE includes 11 partners from prestigious universities, health insurers, and other public and private sector institutions across eight European countries. The project has received 6 million euros in funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.

Dental decay and gum disease are amongst the most common diseases globally but could be prevented. The ADVOCATE research project set out in 2015 to analyse best practices and optimise delivery of oral health and wellbeing in the EU by shifting the systematic focus to prevention of tooth decay and oral diseases. Principal Investigator of the project and Head of UCC’s College of Medicine and Health, Prof. Helen Whelton today commented:

“We believe we can reduce decay, improve health and literally put smiles on millions of faces by motivating dentists and patients to work together in a partnership of prevention, and by understanding how national dental care systems work best”

ADVOCATE Conference 2019

The ADVOCATE [Added Value for Oral Care] Conference will be held today in UCC and will bring together European researchers, policy-makers and dentists to discuss best practises to enhance prevention in dentistry and increase quality of life. The launch will be held in the Aula Maxima and MEP Deirdre Clune launched the project findings, a Conference dinner will take place later today in the River Lee hotel at 7.00p.m. where Minister of State for Mental Health and Older People, Jim Daly will speak, other distinguished guests include UCC President, Pat O’Shea and deputy Lord Mayor Cllr. Mary Shields.

About ADVOCATE

The joint project of partners from 6 EU countries systematically compared dental health systems across the EU and found that there is substantial variation in the way that data is collected and stored across participating countries. An attempt has been made to harmonise the available data in order to allow comparisons. Work has been carried out to understand the impacts of dental care systems design on oral health and how to align oral health care resources with people’s oral health needs. The ADVOCATE project team hope to be in a position to report on key results at the Conference in Cork on March 25th next.

Patient Engagement App and Dashboard

As part of ADVOCATE’s approach to analyse and visualise data to help dentists to compare their performance to peers, Aridhia (a software company that specialises in providing solutions for safe data analysis in healthcare) has developed a Patient Engagement App and the ADVOCATE Dashboard using their AnalytiXagility Platform. The Patient Engagement App provides a user-friendly environment to survey patients in the dental clinic. It follows a set of 52 standardised questions that allow comparability across regions and countries. This data is combined with patient claims data and feeds into the ADVOCATE Dashboard which enables participating dentists to view data to gain insight into their own performance and compare it to other dentists in their country or region.

For more information on the AnalytiXagility platform, please visit: https://www.aridhia.com/

ADVOCATE Partners

Include the University of Leeds, University College Cork, University of Heidelberg, University of Copenhagen, Semmelweis University in Budapest, Academic Centre for Dentistry in Amsterdam (ACTA), Aridhia, deCare Dental, Spektrum K, Achmea and NHS England. The project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.

For more information please visit www.advocateoralhealth.com or view the latest ADVOCATE newsletter http://www.advocateoralhealth.com/2018/12.

Photography by Gerard McCarthy