Ana Aslan International Foundation’s Post

Last week Madeira hosted the last general assembly of the SMART BEAR consortium. This final event showcased the accomplishments and results of the project and was attended by numerous personalities, amongst which a special mention goes to Miguel Albuquerque, President of the Autonomous Region of Madeira, Bernd Gawlik, representing the European Comission, Ana Povo, National Secretary of Health for Portugal, Pedro Ramos, Secretary of Health of Madeira, Ioannis Fostiropoulos, Mayor of Municipality Palaio Faliro, Laura Contor, Smart Bear Project Officer from the European Commission). The huge success of the project implied overcoming major obstacles (worth mentioning here that the COVID-19 pandemic started months after the prokect kickstart) was due to the impressive efforts of the researchers involved, especially from the large scale pilots; the Romanian pilot, run by the Ana Aslan International Foundation (as clinical partner) and IT Software Solutions (tech partner) was unanimously acknowledged for playing a crucial part in the success of the project. Representing the Romanian pilot in this event, Univ. Prof. Luiza Spiru (MD, PhD), Dr. Răzvan Ioan Trașcu (MD, MPH) and Claudiu Petrescu showcased the accomplishments and shared insights on our journey as part of SMART BEAR at the Romanian booth, answering questions from both experts and general public. SMART BEAR is a turning point in the future of medical care, being amongst the first EU funded research projects to demonstrate that information provided by off the shelf wellbeing gadgets can be integrated into a dedicated dashboard, and can later on (involving data analytics and machine learning) enable personalized profiling and valid predicitions, empowering both patients and healthcare professionals. Moreover, the platform was successfully integrated into healthcare systems, specifically electronic health records. Congratulations and a warm THANK YOU to all those involved, contributing to this amazing success story!