DIGITALEUROPE’s participation at European Health Forum Gastein 2018

The European Health Forum in Gastein (EHFG), Austria, is Europe’s annual top event on healthcare research and the policy environment enhancing efficient and innovative solutions in the fight against cancer.

The EHFG is attended by a wide range of health practitioners, among which experienced doctors, researchers, executives, hospital managers and associations’ leaders.

DIGITALEUROPE was present in Gastein on 4 and 5 October 2018 where Director-General, Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl, engaged in a lively debate organised and moderated by Bristol-Myers Squibb on enabling digital transformation for cancer care in Europe.

Together with Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl, the other speakers of that policy debate were:

• Stefan Gijssels, Executive Director of Digestive Cancers Europe and EuropaColon
• Kostas Athanasakis, Health Economist, Research Fellow, NSPH Athens
• Mathias Ekman, Director Industry Solutions, Microsoft
• Marisa Co, Head, Business Insights & Analytics – R&D, Business Insights and Analytics, Bristol-Myers Squibb

There is no doubt that new digital opportunities are redefining a new frontier for patients, doctors and hospitals to secure the future of cancer care: one of greater sustainability, increased patient-centeredness and outcomes, more efficient health care delivery systems and pathways to discover and develop treatments.

In light of the recent European Commission communication on enabling the digital transformation of health and care under the digital single market, this interactive session examined how European healthcare systems could evolve towards greater sustainability with a smarter and more meaningful use of data across discovery and care pathways.

The session touched upon the important benefits that can be triggered by data analytics, artificial intelligence and the free flow of data. These can have an extremely positive impact on patients’ health, from treatment to preventive and predictive medicine and services.

81% of EU citizens believe that sharing healthcare data could improve treatment, diagnosis and prevention of diseases across the EU. 93% of EU citizens believe that they should be able to manage their own health data wherever they are across the EU.

It is now time to give patients equal rights to transparency and quality of treatment and to enable them to share their data across Europe for the benefit of other patients.