Background

Although continuous medical progress has been achieved in recent years and the treatment of many diseases has been further developed, cancer is still one of the most common causes of death in Europe. To enable effective and targeted treatment, the importance of transnational cooperation and the associated exchange of knowledge and skills is becoming increasingly significant.

As part of the Europe´s Beating Cancer Plan, the European Commission will establish an EU network linking the National Comprehensive Cancer Centres (CCCs) in every EU member state by 2025 (Flagship 5). The Joint Action CraNE is intended to support achieving this goal. The project has a duration of two years (10/2022 - 09/2024).

The initiative is coordinated by the National Institute of Public Health of the Republic of Slovenia (NIJZ) and includes 46 partners from 25 nations spread across health care providers, university hospitals, national health authorities, research institutes and universities.

Overall Objectives

The overall goals of the CraNE project can be summarized as follows:

Ensure a high level of quality within cancer centers Identify and improve organisational aspects to strengthen the link between centers to ensure patient navigation Assessing the sustainability and feasibility of the intended networking, taking into account the different health care systems CraNE builds on the results of the previous European Joint Actions CANCON and iPAAC.

Patient Pathway Development

In Work Package 6, Organization of comprehensive, high-quality cancer care in Comprehensive Cancer Care Networks (CCCN), Task 6.4 has the aim of "Enhancing patient centeredness in CCCNs with patient pathways". This task focuses on the development of a patient pathway template for the CCCN care of lung cancer patients (see Deliverable D6.4.2 - Template for the patient pathway and Deliverable D6.4.2 - Report on describing the patient pathway template), which was tested in the two pilot CCCNs in Luxembourg and Poland.

As part of the development efforts, the digitalization of patient pathway for the CCCNs will be addressed through the creation and provision of interoperability guidelines as outlined in Sub-Task 6.4.4 - Preparations for Standardised Digital Implementation of Patient Pathways in CCCNs.