Disruptive models of healthcare - Re-thinking the regulatory framework

Past event

Sustainable Livelihoods

18Feb2016

starts 12:30

ends 14:30

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Summary

‘Disruptive’ isn’t a positive term, right? Wrong! It’s being used to describe the type of innovation that is urgently needed to shake up healthcare systems and bring in a broader range of actors and tools to relieve suffering and extend the number of years that Europeans enjoy good health.

Friends of Europe launched a series of three high-level roundtables to examine the steps needed to create “disruptive models” for overhauling and improving healthcare systems across the EU.

European healthcare is already assailed by the combined forces of ageing, increased levels of chronic disease and growing shortages of qualified medical staff. Harnessing new technology is a solution, but that means introducing sometimes radical reforms to long-established institutions and practices.

By assessing the regulatory changes needed together with new business models and value networks, this series aimed to build a holistic picture of how healthcare structures can be adapted to keep pace with the revolution in diagnostic and clinical advances. It also intends to make a substantial contribution to the debate on how Europe’s expanding healthcare sector can remain affordable.

About

Friends of Europe is launching a series of three high-level roundtables to examine the steps needed to create “disruptive models” for overhauling and improving healthcare systems across the EU.

By assessing the regulatory changes needed together with new business models and value networks, this series of Friends of Europe roundtables aims to build a holistic picture of how healthcare structures can be adapted to keep pace with the revolution in diagnostic and clinical advances. It also intends to make a substantial contribution to the debate on how Europe’s expanding healthcare sector can remain affordable.

Schedule

13.00 14.30

Re-thinking the regulatory framework to encourage disruptive innovation in health

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Expand Re-thinking the regulatory framework to encourage disruptive innovation in health

New technologies have done much to revolutionise healthcare systems and devices, yet when it comes to telecoms the digital age has so far had a limited impact. More than half a billion euros in EU funding have been poured into areas like electronic patient records, but for healthcare as such the digital revolution has yet to happen.

The present regulatory framework in Europe is partly to blame. Regulators’ understandable concerns about patient safety and the need to uphold healthcare standards have limited the adoption of some innovative technologies. But such caution needs to be counterbalanced by a rules-based approach that also encourages fresh thinking.

‘Disruptive innovation’ that promotes the development, testing and implementation of technological advances must also find a place in a wholly transparent new regulatory framework.

The potential of eHealth has already attracted much hype, with mHealth – the use of mobile smartphone apps – likely to create similar public attention. The degree to which these advances will prove to be healthcare game-changers remains to be seen.

First, the regulatory and other barriers to the introduction of new technologies need to be assessed, and where necessary removed. A key question is whether new EU data protection rules could open the way to revolutionary new healthcare technologies?

Moderator

Tamsin Rose

Facilitator

Speakers

Cristina Bescos

Managing Director of EIT Health Spain. Former European Innovation Partnership Coordinator at Philips Healthcare

Philippe De Backer

Belgian Secretary of State. Former Member of the European Parliament. Member of Friends of Europe Informal Group on Health Policy

Sabine Koch

Director of the Health Informatics Centre and Strategic Professor of Health Informatics at Karolinska Institutet

Peteris Zilgalvis

Head of Unit for Health and Well-Being at the European Commission Directorate General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology

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Speakers

Tamsin Rose is a facilitator who was until recently a senior fellow for health at Friends of Europe. Having studied international relations, she has 25 years of experience working across the European continent from Ireland to Mongolia. A natural communicator, Tamsin has been a radio reporter, worked on press for the EU Delegation in Moscow and is currently a member of the external speaker team for the European Commission Directorate-General for Communication, describing how the EU works and key policies to visitor groups from around the world. Since 2002, she has specialised in public health and public participation issues, serving as the Secretary General of the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA), and providing strategic advice for health groups on how to engage successfully with the EU.

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