One of Martin’s many projects was the vision of a digital health platform and, in 2015, the EmERGE project was started under a 5-year HORIZON 2020-funded project. The idea was conceived by Martin and completed by the EmERGE team who proudly brought it to fruition in his memory. The EmERGE team co-designed, developed, integrated and evaluated a digital health platform for people living with HIV. ‘PrEP EmERGE’ is based on the same technology and principles as the original EmERGE project, however, aimed at HIV prevention by supporting people accessing HIV-PrEP and helping clinics manage capacity. More info here
In September 2021, 133 patients had enrolled into the PrEP emerge digital pathway, of which, 81 agreed to participate in an online evaluation project. The project was led by one of our trustees, Colly Fitzpatrick, who undertook this project as part of an NIHR funded Master of Research degree. The aim of the study was to evaluate the acceptability and usability of the PrEP EmERGE app.
The projected highlighted the benefit of co-designed innovations and showed that applications such as PrEP EmERGE may provide an important role to help facilitate the increasing number of patients accessing sexual health services for the provision of HIV-PrEP.
The project was recently published in HIV Medicine, congratulations to Colly!
Full article can be access here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/hiv.13406
