The WeCare Chair is leading one of the work packages of the competitive project “RAPHAEL: Integrating a palliative care approach for patients with heart failure”, which has obtained competitive funding from the HORIZON Europe Funds.
The RAPHAEL project is part of the Horizon Europe program’s Pillar 2 Health cluster call, and has obtained total funding of 6,207,365.5 €, of which 392,337 € are earmarked for the WeCare Chair.
Coordinated by the University Medical Center Utrecht, the initiative is promoted by a consortium made up of 15 universities, research centers and hospitals from different European countries, including UIC Barcelona.
As Dr. Monforte, co-director of the WeCare Chair and vice-rector of Academic Planning and Faculty at UIC Barcelona, explains, “RAPHAEL is a project created with the aim of integrating palliative care into the care of patients suffering from heart failure diseases through remote home monitoring and thus improving their quality of life and autonomy“.
Heart failure is a highly prevalent pathology in Western European countries, limiting the functional capacity of sufferers and accounting for 10% of overall mortality in women and 3% in men. “Palliative care would help to considerably improve the quality of life of patients and their families, however, access to this comprehensive care is currently scarce and delayed,” adds the team of researchers of the WeCare Chair. “For this reason, with the support received, from the RAPHAEL consortium we want to offer palliative care to heart failure patients in Europe, including those in more remote and rural areas, thanks to personalized care that includes home monitoring. This will also help to reduce hospitalization and readmission rates.
UIC Barcelona currently has close to 100 competitive projects underway. With the RAPHAEL project, there are now five UIC Barcelona projects funded by the Horizon Europe program, which demonstrates the University’s projection in international research and its high level of competitiveness in Europe.
