On the 20 and 21 of March 2019, DigitalHealthEurope hosted two workshops at the 3rd Portugal eHealth Summit, in Lisbon.
The events were organised together with Partners of the European Blueprint on Digital Transformation of Health and Care for the Ageing Society.
The overall aim was to make progress on actions related to the three priorities in the European Commission’s 2018 Communication on the Digital Transformation of Health and Care in the Digital Single Market.
The workshops facilitated discussions among invited experts. Some 50 individuals attended.
They consolidated agreements to forge ahead with:
- citizens’ secure access to and sharing of health data across borders
- better data to advance research, disease prevention and personalised health and care
- digital tools for citizen empowerment and person-centred care.
The workshops reinforced how stakeholders can work together on digital health. They provided considerable shared insights into what is happening with health data that is fair, data that can be shared, and data can be given to others. They showed how the range of stakeholders have different expectations of such discussions. They challenged DigitalHealth Europe to continue to bring together stakeholder groups over the next 18 months.
The 20 March 2019 workshop focused on work carried out by the Blueprint Partners. Attendees agreed how useful the Blueprint personas and accompanying user narratives can be. They look forward to the co-development of user scenarios for innovative digital solutions. It should be possible to start from these when working on next steps. Upcoming activities will focus on the use of health data for research and disease prevention, and the potential it has for large scale deployment of health and care.
The 21 March 2019 workshop addressed the work of the DigitalHealthEurope collaboration platform on “Citizen’s secure access to and sharing of health data”. The workshop looked at citizens’ control of data, data governance, and data donation. It stretched the exploration of secondary uses of data from research to application. It also highlighted good practice examples of citizen empowerment and digital health literacy.
Hannu Hämäläinen, Senior Adviser, SITRA – Finland, said of the experience:
I got a real sense of how discussions on data sharing are progressing at the European level, and how some Member States address questions of data sharing and data donoring. I learned a lot about where things are heading in the digital transformation of health and care in Europe. I was able myself to introduce people to Finland’s latest approaches to secondary use of social and health care data, and IHAN – the fair data, economy based on MYDATA[1],[2]. Last but least, I really appreciated the networking opportunities.
The full two-day report is available here.
The workshops were organised with the support of DHE’s partner from Portugal – SPMS (Shared Services Ministry of Health).
