AFFIRMO - New study on multimorbidity cases with Atrial Fibrillation (AF) kicked off!

Affirmo project kicked off with a successful online meeting on May 17th gathering all our partners. Affirmo is a HORIZON 2020 project financed under the SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Health, demographic change and well-being. For the next 5 years, the project will study clusters of multimorbidity where atrial fibrillation(AF) represents one of the chronic conditions.

The Affirmo project officially started on May 2021, 1st and had its Kick-off meeting on May 2021, 17th involving around 60 people from all around Europe. The project is proposing a new study tackling the issues related to elderly patients with Multimorbidity including Atrial Fibrillation. Multimorbidity is a common condition in older age and can substantially influence people’s health and quality of life, making management more difficult. Meanwhile, AF is the most common heart rhythm disorder with 1 in 4 adults at risk of developing it in their lifetime and is associated with a higher risk of stroke, death, dementia and heart failure.

The main approach underpinning AFFIRMO is to identify older patients with multimorbidity (including AF), assess their individual needs, and deliver a holistic integrated approach to their care that takes account of personal preferences for treatment and considers the social context.

Professor Søren Paaske Johnsen from the Department of Clinical Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine, Aalborg University, said: “We understand and treat patients better if we look at them from a holistic perspective and see them as human beings with coherent systems of diseases. Otherwise, we simply miss the big picture. But getting the entire healthcare system to organise treatments that match this perspective is a difficult challenge. It means that we must move away from a ‘one size fits all’ approach and instead focus on the patient’s individual situation and actively involve the patient in decisions about the organisation of the care. That is the great challenge we will address with this project.”

The five-year AFFIRMO project is being carried out by a multidisciplinary consortium of 20 partners from 9 countries - researchers and clinicians from across Europe representing all research field essential for the success of this project: clinical research, epidemiology, data science, biostatistics, pharmacology, economics, psychology and social sciences.

The Kickoff meeting was a great opportunity to meet all 20 partners and have a common understanding of the tasks and roles of everyone in the project. Moreover, partners presented the work packages and milestones to achieve for the next 5 years and discussed some key managerial and financial issues.

Total H2020 grant: € 5 998 753,25 AFFIRMO partners

• AALBORG UNIVERSITET (DK)

• THE UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL (UK)

• UNIVERSITEIT GENT (BE)

• KAROLINSKA INSTITUTET (SWE)

• CONSIGLIO NAZIONALE DELLE RICERCHE (IT)

• UNIVERSITATEA DE MEDICINA SI FARMACIE CAROL DAVILA DIN BUCURESTI (RO)

• UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI PADOVA (ITA)

• FACULTY OF MEDICINE, UNIVERSITY OF BELGRADE (RS)

• MOVERIM CONSULTING SPRL (BE)

• ADVICE PHARMA GROUP SRL (ITA)

• ONTONIX SRL (ITA)

• ARRHYTHMIA ALLIANCE (UK)

• EUROPEAN UNION GERIATRIC MEDICINE SOCIETY AISBL (BE)

• ISTITUTO SUPERIORE DI SANITA (ITA)

• UNIVERSITA CATTOLICA DEL SACRO CUORE (ITA)

• FONDAZIONE PER IL TUO CUORE ONLUS (ITA)

• THE EUROPEAN INSTITUTE FOR INNOVATION THROUGH HEALTH DATA (BE)

• THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER (UK)

• UNIVERSIDAD DE MURCIA (ES)

• MEDITCINSKY UNIVERSITET-PLOVDIV (BG)

For further information, please contact:

Professor Søren Paaske Johnsen, Department of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, AAU, spj@dcm.aau.dk  , telephone: +4529470295