From the 1 July 2017 to the end of the year, Estonia is assuming the Presidency of the EU Council. One of the country's top priorities for the Presidency programme is the development of the Digital Single Market (DSM) and the Digital Economy in Europe, bringing more services and benefits to EU citizens, including health and social care services.Thus, the Estonian 2017 EU Presidency aims to enhance the deployment and the implementation of Digital health across Europe.
The Digital Health Society Declaration
In preparation of this, the Ministry of Social Affairs of Estonia has appointed the European Connected Health Alliance (ECHAlliance) as its International Strategic Partner in order to develop the agenda of activities around the concept of the Digital Health Society (DSH) and launch a large collaborative work, an ecosystem, with the main EU key stakeholders representing policy-makers, citizens, health professionals, scientists, companies and payers. This multi-stakeholders group is producing the Digital Health Society Declaration, expressing the current main challenges for the Digital health deployment and drawing ways and initiatives from each category of stakeholders to achieve it.
In addition to that, DHS Task Forces have been created, gathering high-level experts from whole Europe which focus on:
- Convergence on interoperability standards and Digital Tele healthcare protocol
- Data donors and citizen-controlled data governance
- Legal framework facilitating the free flow of data and the 2nd use of data
- Digital transformation & change management in health and social care organisations
Each DHS Task Force and its leaders and experts will publish its conclusions in September 2017, including a call for commitments & actions for all stakeholders willing to move forward on these specific topics. People interested to be informed about one or several Task Force(s) can apply to the emailing list within the Consultation questionnaire.
The Conference
The conclusions and results of this collaborative work will be presented at the conference Health in the Digital Society. Digital Society for Health, co-organised by the Ministry of Social Affairs of Estonia, ECHAlliance and HIMSS Europe, in Tallinn, on 16-18 October 2017. The event will focus on how digital technologies and wider use of health data are changing our lives and the ways of healthcare. The programme is built around 3 mantras:
- Building citizen-driven demand in eHealth
- eHealth supporting the value driven and sustainable health and social services
- eHealth as a driver of innovation and economic development
The sessions will present discussions around a broad range of topics, technologies and concepts such as: citizens access and control of their own health data, personalised health, Internet of Healthy things, blockchain, virtual reality, behaviour changes, smart cities, mHealth, cybersecurity, mental health, big data, interoperability and standards, prevention.
This multi-stakeholders conference will bring together the EU policy-makers (including Member State ministers responsible for health and social affairs and regions), patients/citizens organisation representatives, large IT and healthcare companies and start-ups healthcare professionals, hospital managers, researchers, insurers.