Inspiration and good food during an Italian Summer School

The six-day Summer School in Bertinoro (Italy) was called ‘Digital Mobility Outcomes for Health Promotion and Prevention: Extracting actionable insights from real-world data’ and involved digital healthcare mobility innovations regarding patient engagement, policy making, ethics, regulations, and more. There were also a lot of hands-on experiences with digital monitoring technology in healthcare. ‘I’ve been working in several programs related to remote health monitoring over the past four years’, Vera says. ‘This was the first time I got to experience these devices myself, for example what it’s like to have sensors in your shoes to track your motor skills. It was so insightful to have a first-hand experience of what people with impaired mobility go through, and how health technology can help to improve their lives.’

Koen calls it a ‘deep dive’, since there were many topics to be discussed, often in quite a lot of technical detail. ‘It was extremely impressive to see how many of the PhD students that were present could quickly change or extend the programming of devices, to find new ways to improve them or add features, to get more meaningful results from them.’ Many of the participants had a very high intrinsic motivation, both program managers noticed. ‘They really wanted to make a difference in the lives of patients’, Vera says.

The many researchers at the Summer School were working on developing new sensors or software related to patient mobility, using real-world and personal data. They put the patient in the center of their innovations, resulting in smaller, easier to use, less intrusive and more accurate devices. Koen learned that you could view mobility as a 6^th vital sign (next to heart rate, blood pressure, respiratory rate, body temperature, oxygen saturation). ‘It’s strongly linked to dignity, freedom, and autonomy. Any technology that can improve mobility in patients, will add to their quality of life.’

Both program managers said they learned a lot and had a lot to think about afterwards, but they also acknowledged that much of the added value of the Summer School was in building new relationships. ‘The social aspect was amazing. I truly hope that my path will cross again with the people I met’, Vera says. ‘We met inspiring people, had lots of laughs, and had an overall great experience. We’d like to thank Mobilise-D and DARE for the organization, and we can highly recommend anyone to join a Summer School at some point in their careers.’

An overview of the Summer School, including interviews with some attendees, can be found here.