The EU H2020 ADVOCATE project team Announces details of the launch of its first findings on the
Development of a New Model for Oral Healthcare
February 7th 2019: The EU H2020 ADVOCATE [Added Value for Oral Care] project team today announced details of the launch of its first findings on the development of a new model for oral healthcare, which will take place at an International gathering in the Aula Maxima in UCC on March 25th next. 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”
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: www.aridhia.com
ADVOCATE Conference and Launch
The ADVOCATE Conference brings 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 on the 25th of March 2019 in Cork in UCC. MEP Deirdre Clune will be launching the project findings.
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.
