Pryv and Cara are the organizations in charge of the electronic patients records for the SWISSNEUROREHAB project. Pryv.io software is a consent, privacy and data management tool which is to be integrated by the HES-SO Valais team of Profs. Michael Schumacher, Henning Müller, Jean-Paul Calbimonte as co-investigators of the sub-project 3 “data infrastructure & data capture”, and Prof. David Issom as coordinator of this sub-project, focusing on building an interoperable data platform.
SWISSNEUROREHAB is one of the fifteen projects selected for this first edition of the Flagship initiative, started in 2021 by Innosuisse, the Swiss Agency for the Encouragement of Innovation, and intended to support interdisciplinary projects with high socio-economic value.
Through its vision, it aims at setting up an innovative model of neurological rehabilitation
The project is developed and coordinated by the CHUV, aiming at implementing an innovative model of neurological rehabilitation. The project’s budget of 11.2M CHF Is provided by Innosuisse and by industrial partners.
SwissNeuroRehab will develop and validate an effective model of neurorehabilitation along the continuum of care in Switzerland. This patient-centered model will specify the clinical, operational and economic processes required to offer the most efficient treatment of sensorimotor and cognitive deficits after stroke, traumatic brain injury and spinal cord injury. State-of-the-art, evidence-based therapeutic programs, leveraged by Digital Therapies, will be validated and implemented into the clinical routines by Swiss centers of excellence. An inter-cantonal economic model will validate the reimbursement of this new model within the healthcare system and estimate the return of investment for healthcare providers and MedTech companies. Novel education curricula and science dissemination programs will be built for healthcare professionals, decision makers, patients and caregivers. The model will offer a long-term solution to address the challenges due to the increasing prevalence of neurological disorders in our ageing society.
Every year, in Switzerland, 15,000 people suffer from a stroke, 5,000 people suffer severe or moderate cerebral trauma (CCT) and 150 find themselves paraplegic. Neurorehabilitation takes care of these patients with interdisciplinary teams of physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists, neuropsychologists, nurses and doctors, who work together to promote the recovery of walking, manual dexterity, speech, memory or concentration. Often, following a stroke or CBT, patients remain hospitalized in neurorehabilitation for months, with several therapeutic sessions a day. Hospital neurorehabilitation in Switzerland is among the most specialized and efficient in the world. However, after the patient returns home, ambulatory neurorehabilitation often remains insufficient and disconnected from hospital care. For practical reasons, such as being domiciled far from a neurorehabilitation center, but also for reasons related to insurance coverage, the follow-up of most patients is limited to a few therapeutic sessions per week instead of multi-daily sessions offered in hospitals. However, the frequency and intensity of the sessions are the main factors determining the success of neurorehabilitation and the degree of recovery. To overcome this problem, the consortium plans to develop and implement a new model of personalized neurorehabilitation. This model will include the best existing therapeutic options combined with innovative neurotechnological solutions such as neurostimulation, robotics, exoskeletons, sensors, video games and virtual reality. These new therapies will be available in the clinic, in the office, but also at home.
The development of a common and inter-cantonal data platform will make it possible to monitor and optimize neurorehabilitation processes throughout the patient’s journey from acute care to home. Experts in socio-economics are involved in the project with the aim of proposing a new repayment system defined in collaboration with insurers, including technological tools and tele-rehabilitation.
The SWISSNEUROREHAB project brings together the main academic, clinical and industrial actors in Switzerland who has started collaboration to combine conventional neurorehabilitation approaches with new digital technologies, to offer personalized care to patients with sequelae of strokes, head injuries ands paraplegia.
The academic part includes, among others, the university hospitals in Lausanne, Bern, Geneva and Zurich, EPFL, ETH in Zurich, and SUVA clinics. Among the industrial partners are Hocoma, the world leader in the movement’s rehabilitation technologies, the Cara and Pryv companies working on the patient’s electronic file, the Lausanne unicorn start-up MindMaze and other neurotechnological start-ups.
In this project, coordinated by Professor Andrea Serino, the CHUV works closely with the Institution of Lavigny, as it already does as part of the new University Service of Neurorehabilitation (SUN). The outpatient part of the SUN was designed in the spirit of the Flagship project, by putting neurotechnologies for the benefit of Vaud patients requiring neurorehabilitation. The project will be a pillar of the new Interdisciplinary Research Center in Neuroplasticity and Neurorehabilitation (CRINN) implemented jointly by the CHUV, the University of Lausanne and the Institution of Lavigny as part of the SUN.
Sources :
https://www.swissneurorehab.ch/press-dissemination/