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ACQUIRE-HF gets millions in development funding

ACQUIRE-HF receives a 4.3 million grant from the Lundbeck Foundation.

The Lundbeck Foundation has selected the ACQUIRE-HF project to receive a grant of DKK 4.3 million over the next five years. ACQUIRE-HF is one of 12 projects selected among 162 candidates to receive such health science funding from the Lundbeck Foundation.

ACQUIRE-HF is an interdisciplinary and international research project in which researchers, IT specialists, health care professionals and patients will work together to develop an interactive platform to monitor and detect changes in symptoms and quality of life in patients with heart failure at an early stage.

“This is an important clinical project that is detailed and well thought out. It has clear objectives that, if met, could have important implications for patients' quality of life and progress,” says Anne-Marie Engel, Director of Research at Lundbeck Foundation.

Heart failure is a common condition with increasing incidence, and leads to over 1 million hospitalisations each year in the US and Europe. More than 26 million people in the world have heart failure, and in Europe there are over 3.5 million new cases every year. Despite improved treatment options, the prognosis is poor and the risk of repeated hospital admissions is high. The condition is chronic and it restricts patients in their daily function and reduces their quality of life.

"The key to a better life for these patients may lie in the use of personalised and patient-centred tools that help to empower patients. The patients themselves are involved in drawing up a treatment plan with targets and tools that can help them to make the necessary behavioural changes. Patients learn to recognise and react to changes in their health status and thus become active participants in the management of their own illness,” says Susanne S. Pedersen, Professor of Cardiac Psychology, SDU and OUH.

“Timely detection of a worsening of the patient's symptoms is vital not only for the patient’s quality of life and to prevent hospitalisation and death. The use of the platform may also help to reduce the costs to society that are associated with the disease.”

The project received a grant of DKK 7 million from TrygFonden earlier this year.

The project is led by Professor of Cardiac Psychology, Susanne S. Pedersen, Department of Psychology, University of Southern Denmark, and the Department of Cardiology, Odense University Hospital, and is based in the patient@home collaboration in the Region of Southern Denmark.
Editing was completed: 26.02.2016