The ECIBC web hub concept and feasibility study

In December 2012, the Joint Research Centre (JRC) was assigned by the Directorate- General for Health and Consumers (now the Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety-DG SANTE) with the task of coordinating the European Commission Initiative on Breast Cancer henceforth shortened to ECIBC. ECIBC main tasks as defined in the DG SANTE published document are: To develop a new version of the European guidelines for breast cancer screening and diagnosis based on new knowledge and evidence ; to develop a voluntary European quality assurance (QA) scheme for breast cancer services covering all care processes based on the EU legislative framework on accreditation and underpinned by the evidence provided by the guidelines. With regard to guidelines covering processes other than screening and diagnosis (treatment, rehabilitation and follow-up, and all relevant horizontal aspects), a platform for breast cancer guidelines is envisaged to host existing evidence-based, high-quality guidelines. The ECIBC project also includes the definition of a concept for training of professionals in breast cancer screening and the development of a dedicated web hub, to which this report refers. The ECIBC web hub will be the communication interface with stakeholders and the main tool presenting and making available project deliverables (and their updates) over the long-term. The present report is a summary of the process of developing the concept for the ECIBC web hub and of the feasibility study activities: It provides a list of user requirements along with some sketched ECIBC web hub pages, crafted out of a series of meetings and analysing relevant cancer-related web portals. It describes the technical platform evaluation process that led to the selection of Liferay Portal. It presents a high-level initial plan to provide ECIBC web hub functionality needed by the upcoming ECIBC project steps, with a pilot in the second part of 2015 and a fully functional web hub at the end of 2017.