Digital Health Applied to the Clinical Research of Brain Disorders Network

List of ECNP Networks and TWGs

Digital Health Applied to the Clinical Research of Brain Disorders Network

Mission statement

ECNP Network Digital Health applied to the clinical research of brain disorders

Digital approaches are rapidly changing traditional ways of diagnosis, monitoring, management, and treatment of brain disorders and are expected to be a driving force for at least the next decade worldwide. This idea is in line with recent claims of the World Health Organization (WHO), that mobile technology is the most promising way to reduce global mental health and change the way of delivery of treatment. One mayor driver is the advent of smartphones. Smartphones allow for delivery of treatment to patients on-demand in real-time and naturalistic settings and can augment already available treatments. At the same time, smartphones contain several sensors and technologies enabling patients, researchers, and clinicians to access information about physical and social activities. However, since the development of smartphone apps is driven mainly by software and computer scientists and private companies, most available apps have not been scientifically investigated, and the validity, treatment effect, and safety have been sparingly investigated in studies with high methodological heterogeneity.

The direction of the ECNP Digital Health Applied to the Clinical Research of Brain Disorders Network is to gather European experts within the field of digital health with the goal of establishing a collaborating network and platform to work across nations to continuously produce, update and spread out state-of-the-art guidelines for future studies and clinical practice within the field of digital health applied to clinical research. In addition, we aim to achieve a clear vision in this field of mobile health within psychiatry and clinical psychology and robust evidence-based information, for scientist as well as for practitioners. To start with this endeavor we decided to take a broad, but focused approach. We will mainly focus on mHealth, using smartphones as technological backbone. To cover the whole breadth of digital health, we will also include experts from eHealth and machine learning to bridge into the communities working in these areas.

Aims

The aims of the network are as follows:

to foster translational neuroscientific research in the area of digital health
to develop a vision of how digital approaches will transform neuroscience
to collect evidence-based information about the effectiveness of digital medicine
to obtain European grants and foster interactions with stakeholders and the ECNP community
to overcome technological and regulatory bottle-necks, by sharing best-practice approaches

Get Digital online series

The ECNP Digital Health Applied to the Clinical Research of Brain Disorders Network offers Get Digital online series on mHealth related research. Visit this page for more info.