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EHTEL Programme

EHTEL is a unique pan-European multidisciplinary stakeholder platform that brings together organisations and individuals engaged in all aspects of eHealth. EHTEL enables the exchange of ideas, opportunities, and knowledge with a community of 5,000+ digital health and care experts and innovators. Its chief objective is innovation in the delivery of eHealth solutions and the transformation of health and social care.

Join our innovation thought leaders!

At RHFH, EHTEL will facilitate thought leader conversations and share people’s experiences in managing the digital transformation of health and care systems in Europe.

On Monday 12 June, EHTEL will facilitate 2 cluster sessions developed in collaboration with leading EU-funded projects and large-scale pilots that are members of the European Health and Care Cluster. The sessions will focus on:

An EU Project Pavilion in the RHFH exhibition area will also enable participants to engage in conversations with representatives of these large-scale pilots throughout the festival.

On Tuesday 13 June 2023 afternoon, EHTEL will facilitate a master class on:

EHTEL looks forward to reflecting with you all on how to implement the radical changes needed and deserved by our health and care systems, our health workforces, and our citizens.

Detailed session descriptions

Monday 12 June  |  13:00-14:30 | Room 203

Cluster session: Challenges and opportunities of AI deployment in hospitals

 

A contribution from EU large scale pilots’ projects 

AI is a revolutionary technology that is being deployed in most industry sectors. But implementing AI solutions within the healthcare sector is becoming a little more complicated than others for several reasons. Among them are the sensitivity of the data to work with and the lack of harmonisation, even between systems in hospitals within the same area.

AI implementation requires a severe transformation of the current status of the healthcare systems but also requests addressing some challenges in advance that will help any deployment to anticipate some issues they likely will have to face.

With this session, we would like to discuss with key stakeholders what these challenges are and how to approach them from their perspective. We want to encourage healthcare organisations to involve multidisciplinary teams in the design and innovation process and focus on:

  • Data quality: AI models require large amounts of high-quality data to train and function effectively. However, healthcare data can be notoriously messy, incomplete, and difficult to access. This can make it challenging to develop accurate and reliable AI models.
  • Patient privacy and ethical considerations: AI models often require access to sensitive patient data, raising important ethical and legal considerations around data privacy and security.
  • Integration with existing systems: Many hospitals have complex legacy IT systems that can make it difficult to integrate new AI technologies. This can lead to technical challenges and delays in implementation.
  • Resistance to change: Healthcare is a conservative industry, and some stakeholders may be resistant to new technologies that they perceive as a threat to their job security or the traditional way of doing things.

To support the discussion, we will start with a brief presentation of a few carefully selected use cases. The session will be chaired by the project ODIN with inputs from the AICCELERATE, HosmartAI and GATEKEEPER projects.

 

Detailed programme

 

Will AI deeply change the way we deal with patients affected by Parkinson disease?

  • Dr. Laura Mäkitie, Neurologist at Helsinki University Central Hospital – AIccelerate Project, Finland

Has AI the capability to significantly improve cancer patient diagnosis and treatment response?

  • Dr. Nivedita Yadav, Researcher and project manager, Free University Brussels (VUB) – HomartAI project, Belgium

Will AI allow to go one big step further in home-based and patient control therapies? The example of sleep disorders.

  • Prof. Thomas Penzel, Scientific Chair of Sleep Center, Physicist, Human Biologist, Physiologist, Somnologist. Charité University Hospital – ODIN project, Germany 

A panel discussion will follow these short presentations focusing on data and ethics, change management and acceptance, integration, co-creation and multidisciplinary teams, and intellectual property rights.

Moderated by Paula Currás. Innovation Project Manager at Medtronic, Spain, the discussion will include additional panellists:

  • Miika Leminen, Head of AI and Analytics at Helsinki University Hospital (HUS), Finland
  • Jovan Stevovic, CEO, CHINO.io, Germany
Monday 12 June  | 15:00-16:30 | Room 203

Cluster session: Scaling Up Digital Health Services for Active and Healthy Living

 

The session will showcase use cases from large scale pilots in Europe with a specific focus on active ageing and with a holistic approach to health.

But there is more: many of those projects have also integrated “scalability by design”; they indeed launched “open calls” to select mature solutions available on the shelf to connect with the platform they created. The session will therefore be highly illustrative and will demonstrate how existing mature solutions can be successfully integrated in collaborative platforms and support advanced use cases.

Finally specific attention will be given to the factors which influence users’ adoption and upscaling.

A very concrete and informative session which will be of high interest for both the demand and the supply sides, it will be chaired by the project GATEKEEPER with inputs from the SHAPES, PhaRAON, SMARTBEAR and ADLIFE projects. Since 2019, these EU-funded projects and 9 others have been actively collaborating together and exchanging resources and best practices in a continuous way.

 

Detailed programme

 

Direct digital interactions with older people: what are the conditions for upscaling in a rural area?

  • Anna Schüttler, Project Manager, Gewi- Institute for healthcare studies / SHAPES project, Germany

 Personalised services to foster active ageing: what needs to change to upscale and make it sustainable?

  • Laura Fiorini, Assistant Professor, University of Firenze / PHARAON project, Italy

Early risk detection of lifestyle related risks: How to make the use of smart devices and big data analysis a widely accepted practice?

  • Karolina Mackiewicz, Innovation Director,  European Connected Health Alliance / GATEKEEPER project, Finland

Panel discussion enriched with the experience of the ADLIFE project:

  • Dolores Verdoy Berastegi, Projects Coordinator, Institute for Health Services Research Kronikgune / ADLIFE Project, Spain
  • Moderator: Dr. Razvan Ioan Trascu, Research Assistant, Ana Aslan International Foundation / SMARTBEAR project, Romania
Tuesday 13 June 2023  |  13:30-15:00 | Rainbow Stage (Room 101AB)

Master Class: Redesigning Hybrid Models of Care: A Collaborative Process

 

“Old wine in new bottles” is a problematic approach. Any new technology applied to an old organisational system simply leads to a new old system! This simple empirical observation made many times in the past is still very valid today. As a result, digital health technologies and service redesign need to face the future hand in hand. 

Let’s look together at concrete experiences of regions that have been successful in redesigning their services, introducing new technologies, and involving stakeholders. Collaboration is a vital new ingredient. These three practical experiences from regions that have transformed their health and care system(s) demonstrate that redesigning services and digital health introduction cannot be successful without the appropriate engagement of all the affected actors.

The session will be chaired by Donna Henderson, President of EHTEL, and involve three presenters who outline their own national and regional service redesign experiences.

 

Detailed programme

 

Redesigning models of care in partnership with the industry

  • Vito Petrarolo, IT Manager, Regional Agency for Health and Social Care of Apulia – ARESS Puglia, Italy

Between the fast lane and the hard shoulder: the German way forward

  • Daniela Spießberger, EU Policy Advisor, gematik GmbH, Germany

Developing the capacities and skills needed

  • Carme Pratdepàdua, mHealth manager, Fundació TIC Salut, Spain
  • Chair: Donna Henderson, President, EHTEL and Head of International Engagement, Scottish Government, Scotland

Stay tuned for more information on these sessions!