The NYMPHA-MD Project: Next Generation Mobile Platforms for Health, in Mental Disorders

Abstract

Bipolar Disorder is a common and complex mental disorder with a prevalence of 1-2% and accounts as one of the most important causes of disability at age 15-44 years worldwide.

Electronic versions of self-monitoring tools and symptom registration using computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), text messages, and web interfaces have been described in the literature and a large number of commercial Smartphone applications for patients with bipolar disorder are available.

The Next Generation Mobile Platforms for Health, in Mental Disorders project (the NYMPHA-MD project), funded by the European Union's Seventh Framework program for research, technological development and demonstration, focuses on the implementation of a Pre-Commercial Procurement of mobile e-health service for supporting physicians and patients in the treatment of bipolar disorder through continuous patients monitoring in order to dynamically support illness management and potentially identify early warning signs.

The NYMPHA-MD project will define the framework of a Pre-Commercial Procurement for the provisioning of next generation services advocated for mental health treatment with a special focus on bipolar disorder based on the use of new technologies, open standards and open platforms.

The NYMPHA-MD project will focus on identifying requirements involved in the structuring of mental health services with a focus on bipolar disorder treatment including medical, technological, patients, legal, ethical, policy, risk management and business-orientation needs in order to construct a reference model of service provisioning useful in different European contexts.

Disclosure of interest

The author has not supplied his declaration of competing interest.