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Summary

Figures that speak for themselves: 3 days, 12 sessions, 400 participants, 50 speakers

The Digital Health Europe Summit 2021 brought together EU policymakers, funders, digital health experts and other stakeholders for inspiring and forward-looking debates. Topics ranged from real-life transformation through digital health (Day 1), via empowering citizens (Day 2) to scaling up innovation through health data (Day 3). 

Digital transformation is undoubtedly ongoing in the healthcare sector. However, it still lacks the right type of support, which can jeopardise the success of this process including the future European Health Data Space. The DHE Summit aimed to scrutinise the drivers and barriers of digital transformation through different lenses.  

The DHE Summit was a unique event which offered a very complex, multifaceted and diverse approach to the facts and challenges of digital transformation. Sessions zoomed in on infrastructure needs such as cloud computing, data connectivity and interoperability across borders. Experts discussed the ‘human factors’ of the process such as capacity building or citizen empowerment. A panel was dedicated to expected promising results and currently fatal diseases which medicine will be able to soon overcome thanks to health data-based research and innovation.  

Last but not least of all, a representatives of the European Commission shared with the audience what the future perspectives are and how all the efforts from different stakeholders will come into place to implement a common European vision on health data.  

Digital Health Europe is a project which has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 826353. It provides comprehensive support to the European Commission and Member States to advance the Digital Single Market priorities for the digital transformation of health and care, as outlined in the European Commission’s 2018 Communication.

Agenda

Tuesday, 28 Sept., 9:00 - 12:00:
Real-life transformation through digital health

9:00 – 10:00 CEST – 1: Introduction to the topic

  • Marco Marsella (DG CNECT)
  • Policy context – Dr. Birgit Morlion (DG CNECT)
  • Keynote speech – Esko Aho (former Prime Minister of Finland)
  • Introduction to DigitalHealthEurope – Dr. Veli Stroetmann (empirica)
10:00 – 11:00 CEST – 2: Digital transformation through replication of European best practices in health and care
 
  • Strahil Birov (empirica)
  • Jon Switters (FUNKA)
  • Dr. Oscar Zanutto (Twinning “SoCaTel”)
  • Helena Biancuzzi (Twinning “OncologyInMotion”)
  • Mathieu Thébaud (Twinning “REHABLAB4ALL”)
  • Benjamin Cid-Bourié (Twinning “CISMED”)
  • Campbell MacLeod and Lasse Kaalby Møller (Twinning “CCEResearchInfrastructure”)
  • Júlia Altarriba and Dr. Rosana Magalhães (Twinning “AI4MultimorbidityConditions”)

DHE has been supporting healthcare providers and the wider digital health and care ecosystem in scaling up best practices through collaboration and partnership building. Learn about the different support services DHE offers, as well as some of the successes achieved thanks to DHE’s twinnings – small knowledge exchange projects which have resulted in adoption of innovation solutions across Europe.

11:00 – 11:15 CEST – Coffee Break

 
  • Donna Henderson (European Health Telematics Association)
  • Dr. Maddalena Illario (European Reference Site Collaborative Network)
  • Dr. Niamh Lennox-Chhugani (International Foundation for Integrated Care)
  • Dr. Gian Matteo Apuzzo (Central European Initiative)

Building on the learnings and the outcomes of the previous session, speakers will take stock of horizontal and vertical challenges of scaling-up in a sustainable way. As a response, those skills and capacities will be elaborated on which can help to solve and overcome these challenges. DHE has developed a capacity building framework that can support a wide range of digital health stakeholders to build their capacities in a hands-on manner. Discussion between DHE consortium partner networks will be triggered on how they deal with cross-border skills development, particularly in Central Europe.

11:55 – 12:00 CEST – 4: Day 1 Closing

  • Dr. Veli Stroetmann (empirica)

Moderator: Dr. José Martinez Usero (FUNKA)

Wednesday, 29 Sept., 14:00 - 16:30:
Empowering citizens through health data

14:00 – 14:40 CEST – 1: Patient-centred health and care

  • Diane Whitehouse (European Health Telematics Association)
  • Nicola Bedlington (European Patients’ Forum)
  • Lyudmil Ninov (European Patients’ Forum)
  • Ivett Jakab (European Patients’ Forum Youth Group)
  • David Magboulé (LabToMarket)

Digitalisation is undoubtedly changing health and care today. Digital health can be fundamental to enhance integration between health and social care and to better manage healthcare systems and services. The road to a full uptake of digital, however, is still very fragmented. If it is true that the COVID-19 crisis has greatly accelerated this process, it has also put under the spotlight once again how access to digital health is very much unequal, organised in different ways across Europe. Furthermore, digital health is not yet fully enabling nor based on collaboration between patients and healthcare professionals nor on co-design.

 

Thousands of Europeans have begun to share health data purposefully in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The debate around citizen-controlled health data sharing especially regarding adequate governance models has, however, been ongoing for much longer. This session explores citizens-centred data sharing. It starts with a COVID-19 use case, and complements it with the results from a large-scale survey on citizens’ attitude towards health data sharing. Finally, we will consider citizens’ and patients’ perspectives on the topic.

15:10 – 15:20 CEST – Coffee break

15:20 – 15:50 CEST – 3: Accelerating health data connectivity

  • Dr. Henrique Martins (DigitalHealthEurope)
  • Dr. Rainer Thiel (empirica)
  • Dr. Dipak Kalra (European Institute for Innovation through Health Data / European Institute for Health Records)
  • Sara Riggare (Uppsala University)
Lack of health data connectivity is still a problem across the EU. Heterogenous levels of connectiveness between health organisations and between health organisations and citizens/patients in Member States is still prevalent. Citizens are key actors to accelerate health data connectivity under two conditions. First, if tools are available to empower them and second, if the right climate of health data activism is created in society which can nurture citizens’ demand for health data interoperability.

15:50 – 16:20 CEST – 4: Data-driven health and care: Is the future federated?

  • Dr. Oliver Zobell (Research Centre Jülich)
  • Prof. Dr. Jan Baumbach (University of Hamburg)
  • Prof. Dr. Oya Beyan (University of Cologne)
  • Prof. Dr. André Dekker (Maastricht University)

In this session, experts will discuss solutions for on-demand access to federated datasets and to cloud computing resources, and how these have the potential to accelerate the digital transformation of health and care.

 

Thursday, 30 Sept., 14:00 - 16:30: Scaling up innovation through health data

14:00 – 14:20 CEST – 1: Keynote speech

  • Update on European Health Data Space – Ioana-Maria Gligor (DG SANTE)

14:20 – 15:15 CEST – 2: Better data to promote research, disease prevention and personalised health and care

  • Dr. Dipak Kalra (European Institute for Innovation through Health Data / European Institute for Health Records)
  • Birgit Bauer (Digital Health & Social Media Entrepreneur)
  • Dr. Emmanuel Bacry (Health Data Hub)
  • Tomaz Gornik (Better)
  • Jesper Kjær (Danish Medicines Agency)
  • Prof. Dr. Denis Horgan (European Alliance for Personalised Medicine)

This session will present the drivers, approaches and success factors for scaling up the availability and uses of health data to accelerate research and the delivery of personalised medicine. The DHE findings from several multi-stakeholder consultations and the assessment of several digital health and eResearch programmes will be summarised. Europe’s scalability and acceptability challenges will be presented and discussed by a panel of experts.

15:15 – 15:25 CEST – Coffee break

15:25 – 16:10 CEST – 3:  Ensuring innovation through health data – where to next?

  • Dr. Zoi Kolitsi (DHE)
  • Prof. Dr. Paul Timmers (European University Cyprus / Oxford University)
  • Nick Schneider (German Federal Ministry of Health)
  • Steven Vermeulen (EBRAINS)
  • Dr. Ilias Iakovidis (DG CNECT)
  • Dr. Tapani Piha (SITRA)

Since the first EC communication on the EDS, much has come into shape and more is to yet be defined for the health specific EHDS. The DHE Recommendations reflect a high degree of congruence on the important issues and challenges, albeit some discrepancies across the multiple stakeholder communities.  What is next? This session aims to peek into what might lie ahead through the lens of several perspectives, brought in by thought- leaders across a broad array of priority challenges.

16:10 – 16:30 CEST – 4: What’s next for Digital Health in Europe

  • Marco Marsella (DG CNECT)
  • Dr. Veli Stroetmann (empirica)

Moderator:  Dr. Petra Wilson

Speakers

Organisation Team

Documents

Outcomes

The 12 sessions over the 3 days of the DHE Summit provided a platform for very rich expert discussions around on-the-ground digital transformation experiences, health data sharing governance models, federated systems, citizen empowerment, European Data Spaces and many other topics.

Find out what happened each day in a nutshell:

Day 1

On Day 1 speakers reflected on what fundamental conditions are necessary for digital health and care to flourish. DHE twinning representatives reported on their success stories, how they managed to adopt innovative solutions, fostered co-creation, co-design with patients and overcame standardised data collection challenges across Europe. DHE partner networks took stock of horizontal and vertical challenges of scaling-up, knowledge sharing and capacity building in a sustainable way, as well as the skills and capacities necessary to overcome the challenges incurred.

Read Day 1 summary

Day 2

On Day 2 panellists discussed about patient-centred and data-driven health and care. Useful hints, ideas and advice were shared on how to empower and engage with citizens. Participants got an insight into citizen’s willingness to share their health data. We heard about data activism movement and how to foster it. Finally, arguments were presented why and how federated datasets can contribute to more accurate AI algorithms and machine learning.

Read Day 2 summary

Day 3

Day 3’s principal scope was debates around the European Health Data Space (EHDS). The audience received an update on the status of the EHDS from the European Commission, furthermore a future outlook concerning EU and Member States’ collaboration in the field of health and how Europe can leverage the experience from the COVID crisis.

Read Day 3 summary