JADE Health is one of the 20 flagship initiatives supported by European Commission from the EU4Health programme, with the objectives to improve prevention, early detection and management of dementia & other neurological disorders.  

JADE Health also undertakes the mission to reduce the burden caused by neurodegenerative diseases utilising new care models focusing on prevention, promoting awareness, healthy aging, health literacy and early diagnosis to integrate validated best EU practices and/or (cost-) effective interventions across countries and regions through implementing transnational pilot initiatives, complementing and reinforcing existing policies and programs.

The 1st Annual Assembly meeting was organised by the FUNDESALUD, the lead partner and coordinator of the consortium in common effort with the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), and brought together more than 110 professionals in a hybrid format (in-person and online).  

The two-day meeting aimed to review the work accomplished so far by all work packages of the JA, offering discussions on achieved results in regard of the first year.  

The Assembly meeting was opened by Prof. Dr. René Thyrian, group leader of Interventional Health Care Research (IHCR) at DZNE, who welcomed the attendees on behalf of the host. Gabor Petzold, DZNE's communications manager presented the DZNE's diverse portfolio, while Albert Kern from the Federal Ministry of Health (BMG) of Germany, and Lennart Vogt form the Federal Ministry of Education, Family, Seniors, Women and Youth (BMBFSFJ), gave presentations on health and social care services for people with dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases, underlining the process of aligning regional strategies with the European Commission’s “Comprehensive Approach to Mental Health” at federal level. This was followed by a detailed presentation of the work carried out so far by the (6 technical and 4 transversal) work packages of JADE Health.  

As pilots will begin next year involving more than 7,500 health professionals, caregivers, patients and families in 44 actions distributed throughout Europe – key themes of the General Assembly focused on identifying major challenges for the coming year, highlighting the methodology of the implementation of the pilots and their alignment with relevant EU strategies, also outlining the related communication and dissemination tasks. The first year’s work was evaluated; lessons learned were summarized and priority areas for further improvement were defined together. The importance of strengthening synergies with other EU initiatives related to mental health currently being implemented, was stressed by Bernardino Morillo, the coordinator of JADEMENTIA so that EU projects - aimed at improving mental health- could optimize their effectiveness and resources further. 

The event was an ideal platform to overview and review main goals and key components of the project that enhanced establishing a common vision among project partners and served as a meaningful reminder of how vision, creativity, and persistence can lead to global change of reducing stigma and improve services for people living with brain health issues and for their families. It also facilitated knowledge-exchange on the selected best practices and care models for adaptation, and last but not least, outlined how to proceed forward with next steps in regard of work package tasks.