The Dutch Ministry of Health together with the European Commission and HIMSS Europe organised from the 8th-10th of June the eHealth Week 2016 and EFA’s Giuseppe De Carlo took part. The event gathered more than 2.000 participants from 55 different countries in the charming venue of Beurs van Berlage in Amsterdam.
The potential of IT applications for both patients and doctors were at the heart of this years’ e-Health week. Exhibitors and speakers presented the latest products, developments and projects in the field; among them myAirCoach, a project were EFA and Asthma UK are partners, and its solutions for the self-management of asthma.
The main challenges related to eHealth were also debated, including safety and privacy, end-users involvement, ensuring scaling up of successful initiatives and introduction were among these challenges. On this regard the European Commission presented the final version of the Privacy Code of Conduct (voluntary) and the second draft of the guidelines for the assessment of validity and reliability of mHealth, which EFA is contributing through our participation to the dedicated working group. If you wish to give your feedback to the guidelines, please respond to the Survey Monkey Questionnaire by the 31st of August.
We were happy to see that this year’s eHealth Week has put the patients at the centre. For the first time a patient advocate was among the Keynote and Plenary speakers: Anne-Miek Vroom, Director of the IKONE Foundation, who suffers from a rare connective tissue disease. Ms Vroom called patients the ‘engines’ of progress and dignified ‘innovation’. She said “In my life, eHealth plays a very limited role. It should be there for everybody, but it is often unused. By collaborating with patients, we learn to think in a different way.” We so much agree with her but would like to add that technologies can be a hurdle too, unless validated by patients.
To know more about the event, please visit the eHealth Week website.
For more information on eHealth do not hesitate visiting our dedicated eHealth for chronic diseases section.