News and Events
| The Final HeartCycle Review took place on the 18th of September 2013, in Brussels. The review concentrated on the work done in the past 15 months with respect to clinical studies. The consortium demonstrated that the project achieved its goals, all tasks were accomplished and impressive results from the clinical studies were collected. |
HeartCycle has been finalized on August 31st
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After 66 months, HeartCycle has been officially finalized on the 31st of August 2013. HeartCycle has been an exciting journey; identifying needs to clinically validated solutions.
In summary, the HeartCycle process over 66 months has been:
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All HeartCycle clinical studies ended
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All HeartCycle clinical studies have successfully ended on July 15th 2013. HFM has included 126 patients for 12 months, GEx 132 patients for 6 months and AUC 35 patients for in hospital investigations. Detailed results will be disseminated in medical publications soon. |
| During the 35th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society in Osaka, Japan (July 2013), Professor Nicos Maglaveras delivered a keynote presentation entitled "New generation of Personal Health Systems enabling quality health data and information gathering and use", focusing extensively on the HeartCycle Approach, Results and Achievements. The keynote presentation of Prof. Maglaveras at EMBC13 can be viewed here | |
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| The personal engagement and never ending support and feedback of the clinical partners, the clinical investigators, the monitor and especially the nurses involved in the daily treatment of the patients in the HeartCycle trials resulted in enrolling about 100 patients in Heart failure and 65 patients in GEx so far. |
| HeartCycle has been selected by the EC as one of nine projects to present results at the
"Made in Europe - ICT building blocks tackling societal challenges" at the European Parliament in Brussels (8-10 October 2012). The exhibition attended Members of the European Parliament and about 200 members of the European Commission's ITRE (Industry, research and energy), TRAN (Transport), ENVI (Environment & public health) and BUDG (Budget) committees. "Made in Europe - ICT building blocks tackling societal challenges" is an event at the European Parliament which focuses on how research contributes to real-life health, sustainability and mobility applications and services. Of the total 9 projects that were invited, only 1 is a medical project; HeartCycle was invited to demonstrate innovations in the medical field. |  |
| The 4th Annual HeartCycle Review was successfully completed in Brussels, in May 2012. The EU reviewers were fully satisfied with the HeartCycle work and the achieved results. |
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HeartCycle had a strong participation at the 34th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC2012 conference) which took place in San Diego (California, USA) at the end of August 2012. The general theme of EMBC'12 was "Engineering Innovation in Global Health", covering a broad spectrum of topics in biomedical engineering and healthcare technologies, including medical and clinical applications. |
| Project achievements were presented in various sessions by project partners. Nicos Maglaveras from AUTH, Sergio Cerutti and Anna Maria Bianchi from Pol. di Milano, Steffen Leonhardt from RWTH Aachen University, and Carmen Poon from the Chinese University of Hong Kong had the opportunity once again to chair and co-chair conference sessions, such as "Ehealth", "Biomedical Signal Classification", "Time-Frequency and Time-Scale Analysis of Biosignals", "Signal Processing in Physiological Systems", "Personal Health Systems", and "Wearable and Non-Contact Physiological Monitoring". EMBC 2012 website | |
HeartCycle presented in a Greek Newspaper
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AUTH partners presented the work carried out within the HeartCycle project in an interview published in a Greek newspaper.
The benefit of the IMAGE sensor was highlighted for patients with coronary artery disease or heart failure to care for them remotely, in order to avoid unpleasant complications to their health, such as pulmonary edema, but also to improve their daily lives. It was also stressed that these services can be extremely useful not only for elderly, but also for young people with chronic diseases or indications for the occurrence of health problems, such as obesity. Read the article in Greek - Google Translate |
HeartCycle presented in Lille
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Philips & Clothing+ partners participated in a seminar in Lille (March), about smart textiles and medical cases.
During a hall exhibition, Clothing+ and Philips had the opportunity to show the Heart Failure vest at the Philips booth, whicle Philips presented HeartCycle / HF vest during their presentation. |
Patent Application for the Bed Sensor HeartCycle product
[Juha M Kortelainen, Espacenet: US 2010249628]
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The HeartCycle Bed Sensor provides more accurate and robust heart beat and respiration extraction based on the multichannel BCG sensor signals than competitive commercial bed mattress sleep monitoring systems. These benefits are essential in both the automatic HRV sleep modeling and automatic analysis of respiratory disorders. The signifigance of better robustness is even greater with sleep patients with strong respiratory and movement artefacts. |
HeartCycle in Medica Trade Fair 2011
| A HeartCycle session was organised during the Medica Trade Fair 2011, on the 17th of November 2011.
Four short presentations were made by Harald Reiter (HeartCycle Project Manager / Philips Research Eindhoven), Dr Ioanna Chouvarda (AUTH), Dr. Sergio Guillen, (CEO at ITACA and President at TSB Tecnologias), and Teresa Meneu (eHealth Strategic Area Manager, Program Director in ITACA-TSB), followed by a 30 minutes podium discussion, moderated by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dr. med. Steffen Leonhardt. |
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The first HeartCycle Experts Meeting was organized at the University Hospital
A Coruña (in La Coruña, Spain) in October 2011, focusing on the analysis of current
approaches and ongoing programs for chronic care delivery in Europe.
Distinguished cardiology experts and medical device industry representatives talked
about challenges and use cases in chronic
disease management.
The event had a strong support by the Spanish Health Authorities, with the participation of the Regional Ministers of Health of Galicia and the Basque country; Mrs Pilar Farjas and Mr Rafael Bengoa respectively. Poster Invitation |
General Assembly meeting in October 2011
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The HeartCycle General Assembly meeting took place in
La Coruña, Spain, on the 4th of October 2011. During the successful meeting, all HeartCycle partners had the opportunity to get together and discuss the current project status, as well as all forthcoming steps. On the days proceeding and following the General Assembly meeting, additional workshops took place by members of Work packages 2 and 3, the Assessment Use Case (AUC), as well as a Board meeting was held. |
| In order to disseminate the most recent project achievements and contribute in the advancement of individualised healthcare, Prof Nicos Maglaveras (AUTH), Harald Reiter (Philips), Sergio Cerutti (POLIMI) of the HeartCycle consortium, have chaired, co-chaired and/or organised 6 sessions during the 33rd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC2011) in Boston. | |
| The sessions were entitled "Closing the Loop in PHS Telemonitoring Systems: How Far Have We Gone?", "State-Of-The-Art Technologies for AAL, Einclusion, and Phealth: The Road Ahead", "Body Sensor Networks", "Implantable Systems II", "Innovative Measurements and Processing for Sleep Studies", and "Cardiovascular Signal Processing & Modeling: Intraoperative Haemodynamic Monitoring". During these sessions, several oral presentations were made regarding advancements made during the HeartCycle project. http://embc2011.embs.org/ | ||
The Heart Manual in HeartCycle
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HeartCycle's education and coaching approach is based on 'The Heart Manual', an evidenced home based cardiac rehabilitation programm. Our partner NHS Lothian presented this approach
at the 'Managing Long Term Conditions Conference 2011', the UK's largest conference and exhibition specifically addressing the management of long term conditions.
The integration of Heart Manual into the HeartCycle telehealth system was then presented at the 'NHS Lothian Psychology Conference'. |
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3rd Annual Review
| The 3rd Annual Review was successfully completed in Hull in May 2011. At the start of the review, Prof. John Cleland highlighted the major medical innovations for all three HeartCycle Use Cases [GEx, HFM, and Assessment Use Case (AUC)] which were used as a guideline in the following demonstrations. Presentations were made by each work package leader, showing the work done and how recommendations of the 2nd review were implemented. The GEx and the HFM systems, which are almost ready for clinical study, were demonstrated and showed how they will be used by professionals and patients in the upcoming year. Through these demonstrations and presentations, we drew attention to the scientific approaches and results necessary to successfully address the medical innovations. |
HeartCycle meets the medical community
| Since November 2010, Prof John G Cleland of the University of Hull has disseminated HeartCycle's concept and achievements in several lectures and presentations to the medical community. More specifically, HeartCycle was presented at two events organised by the EU Commissionin in Brussels in November 2010. Two presentations were made, entitled "Aim: Good Social, Mental & Physical Functioning (Wealth)" at the "How can medical innovations reduce the cardiovascular disease burden?" meeting and "Innovative potential of information systems in clinical care" at the "Active and Health Ageing Innovation Partnership Stakeholders Meeting". In addition, he participated at a Workshop Panel Discussion entitled "Where are the unmet needs? What is the Target Population?" during the "Expert Workshop: How to turn a prognostic factor into a therapeutic decision and monitoring tool? Design and methodological issues" at the 7th Global CardioVascular Clinical Trialists Forum in Paris (CVCT Forum 2010). The CVCT forum is the only event focusing specifically on clinical trials in cardiovascular disease. Lectures were also given at the CRT e-health Workshop in Amsterdam, the XI Cardiovascular Topics 2011 in Barcelona, the ESC Policy Conference on the Clincal Evaulation of CV Devices in Nice, and finally the European Foresight Platform (EFP), a network building program supported by the European Commission's FP7. |
Consortium Enriched
| The HeartCycle consortium agreed to add an extra partner for the purposes of the Heart failure clinical study. |  |
| The new partner, the Hospital Universitario German Trias I Pujol (old name Can Ruti) in Barcelona, will be represented by Dr. med. Antonio Bayes and Dr. med. Josep Lupon, both recognised experts in Heart failure. To optimally prepare and run the clinical study, especially to enrol and keep/ support the selected patient groups there are high requirements with respect to staff and infrastructure. The Barcelona hospital provides all of these and is already experienced in telehealth trials and we are therefore happy that they show a high interest to participate in this clinical study. The Germans Trias hospital of the Catalan Institute of Health acts as a basic general hospital for a population of over 200,000 people in Badalona and Sant Adria de Besos, but also as a referral hospital for nearly 800,000 people living in the North Barcelona and Maresme. The Hospital Universitario German Trias I Pujol in Barcelona will enrich the HeartCycle consortium and help to make the clinical trial a success. http://www.gencat.cat/ics/germanstrias/index.htm |
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Click to view a short video demonstrating the validation of the GEx system
HeartCycle has been selected to be part of the ICT2010 exhibition
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HeartCycle participated at the ICT 2010 exhibition, on September 27-29 at Brussels. The event, organized by the European Commission, focused in the latest research trends in information and communication technologies and offered an excellent opportunity to showcase the project's results to researchers and policy makers from all over Europe. http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/events/ict/2010/ |
General Assembly meeting on September 22nd
| The HeartCycle General Assembly took place in Santorini, Greece on the 22nd of September. During this meeting, HeartCycle's technical, medical and business representatives were brought together to be informed on project progress and to discuss management issues and the remaining workplan. The following day, during workpackage and concept meetings status and remaining tasks were discussed in detail. | 
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HeartCycle in EMBC 2010
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HeartCycle had a strong presence at the EMBC2010 conference on Aug 31-Sept 4, at Buenos Aires. Project achievements were presented in various sessions such as signal processing, eHealth and Personal Health Systems. The topics of the presentations included the results of research work investigating the relation between EEG structure and sleep complexity, education and coaching services for patients with Heart Failure and Coronary Artery Disease, as well as an overall approach for the management of cardiovascular diseases. The detailed presentation list is included in the "Publications" section.
http://embc2010.embs.org/ |
HeartCycle at the European Society of Cardiology Congress 2010
| Prof Cleland gave a presentation on the "Innovations in tele-monitoring for heart disease: MyHeart and HeartCycle" at the European Society of Cardiology Congress 2010, that took place in Stockholm on 28 Aug 2010 - 01 Sep 2010
http://www.escardio.org/congresses/esc-2010/Pages/welcome.aspx |
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HeartCycle session in pHealth 2010
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HeartCycle participated with its own session at the pHealth Conference held in Berlin on May 28, 2010. The activity adressed technical people, ICT and medical device industry.
http://www.phealth2010.com |
| The following presentations were made: -The overall concept of HeartCycle for pHealth delivery to CHF and CAD patients through new multiparametric methods - Harald Reiter
The new telemonitoring generation and its effects and prospects in CHF patient treatment. J Cleland Heartcycle sensors and parameter extraction. Jean Luprano Intelligent methods for decision support for monitoring patient in a holistic manner. Nicos Maglaveras Education and coaching to promote self care in cardiac patients. Wim Stut A model for professional support to Innovative Chronic Conditions Management. M. T. Meneu-Barreira |
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HeartCycle in World of Health IT 2010
| A special occasion for achieving broad visibility for HeartCycle was offered by the World of Health IT 2010 that took place in Barcelona, Spain between March 15 and 18 of 2010 (http://www.worldofhealthit.org/). A HeartCycle poster was exposed at the Medtronic booth, where information was provided about the project to medical professionals and representatives of health adminitration
http://www.worldofhealthit.org/ |
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HeartCycle in MEDICON 2010
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First results of pre-clinical data aquisition and testing of the IMAGE sensing device were presented at the 12th Mediterranean Conference on Medical and Biological Engineering and Computing (MEDICON 2010) which was held during 27-30 of May, 2010 in Chalkidiki Greece. |
Symposium sessions organized by HeartCycle in the Heart Failure Congress 2010
| With the aim to raise awareness about the project in the clinical community, the HeartCycle consortium organized four symposium sessions in the Heart Failure Congress 2010. The sessions, listed below, were jointly organized with the European Commission, Unit "ICT for Health" and informed cardiologists and other stakeholders of the advancements in devices and technology solutions for heart failure: "The way forward for improving heart failure care" (Saturday 29 May 2010) "Telehealth for heart failure: what is the evidence from early trials" (Saturday 29 May 2010) "Major new developments in telehealth" (Sunday 30 May 2010) "Telehealth: the next generation" (Sunday 30 May 2010) http://www.escardio.org/congresses/HF2010/Pages/welcome.aspx |
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Advanced prototype of the IMAGE sensing device available
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The IMAGE device is at an advanced prototyping stage and is currently being preclinically tested by consortium partners. |
HeartCycle successfully reviewed
| All the first year deliverables, as well as the overall project progress were reviewed by the Commission during the 1st Project Review Meeting. The meeting was organized in Brussels, Belgium, and was hosted by the Commission, on the 1st and 2nd of July 2009. The Project Officer, Project Reviewers, contact persons and technical personnel from all partners were present. All deliverables submitted were accepted by the reviewers. |  |
EMBS Achievement Award awarded to Professor Sergio Cerutti
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Professor Biomedical Engineering from our Partner Polimi, received the 2009 EMBS Academic Career Achievement Award which is annually attributed for "Outstanding contribution and achievement in the field of Biomedical Engineering as an educator, researcher, developer, who has had a distinguished career of twenty years or more in the field of biomedical engineering" from the Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS) of IEEE.
He will be officially awarded at the Annual Conference of EMBS (on this year in Minneapolis, USA, on next September). Details can be found here: http://embs.gsbme.unsw.edu.au/ |
HeartCycle in EMBC'09 conference
| HeartCycle participated in the 31st Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC'09) which was held during September 2-6, 2009 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the world capital of the medical device industry. Prof. Nicos Maglaveras gave a presentation of the project. |
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The work leading to these results has received funding from the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme under grant agreement n° FP7-216695 |