The Irish Minister for Health considers eHealth to be an increasingly more vital component
in delivering better and more cost effective healthcare to citizens and, therefore, a very
important consideration for Europe in shaping healthcare systems for its future.
Accordingly, the Minister for Health will invite high level delegations from each Member
State to Dublin to further the development of eHealth through the medium of a conference,
exhibition, workshops and related activities.
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The Conference of the 8th EPRD, aims at reaching these objectives:
1.Increase awareness and information on the concept of patient empowerment, in its two complementary dimensions:
a)improvement of individual patients’capabilities to effectively self-manage their chronic diseases & the different impacts these conditions shall have on patients’daily lives;
b) enhancement of patient groups’capacities to participate efficiently in health policies at national and at Eu levels.
2.Demonstrate that empowered patients with chronic diseases and their organisations are a resource and not a cost, contributing to face the challenges resulting from the ageing of the EU population and the crisis of the EU social model, sharing with the institutions the responsibility of finding the best balance between the interest of patients and the sustainability of the system.
3.Encourage organisations of patients with chronic diseases(OPWCD) to take the lead in the debate on patient empowerment and to actively participate in the health policies at national & at EU levels.
4.Compare the different models of networks, gathering OPWCD, both at nat. and EU levels, and analyse their respective capacities to:
-engage a wide scope of organisations, helping them to overcome their differences and potential conflicts;
-identify and efficiently voice the common interests of patients in the health policy-making;
-empower local & national patient organisations.
SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES:
a)share best practices (BP) of different citizens and patients’ organisations, coming from a wide range of EU countries on:
-empowerment of individual patients: information, support and capacity-building of individual patients with chronic diseases, as well as their relatives, who usually play an essential role in helping them to deal with their conditions, including their social, psychological, and other impacts. This includes partnerships between patients’ organisations and other stakeholders, i.e. health professionals, public institutions, media, healthcare industry,etc.
-empowerment of patients’ organisations by the creation of national or Eu. networks, which transfer to them competences and tools, help them create partnerships,identify common objectives,etc., so as to have an effective impact on the health policy-making.
The BP will come from 3 different sources:
-the 40 BP active involvement of active ageing citizens in the health policy collected in the framework of 6th EPRD(2012)(www.activecitizenship.net/files/take_action/active_ageing_eu_policy.pdf);
-experiences brought by the members of the Scientific Committee;
-EU projects dealing with patient empowerment, such as EUPATI (www.patientsacademy.eu).
b)identify shared Recommendations on the essential role of citizens and patients’ org. in the empowerment and how this could be better taken into account in the framework of the EU reflection process on chronic diseases.
This conference will be an occasion for national and EU associations working in chronic diseases to meet with each other, share experiences and enhance their collaboration at EU level, developing a strong cross-cutting alliance on the empowerment of patients with chronic diseases, in open debate with the Eu institutions and the other healthcare stakeholders.
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Coordinated Care (CC) & TeleHealth (TH) services have the potential to deliver quality care to chronically ill patients. These systems can reduce economic burden of chronic care & maximise delivery of clinical support, despite shortage of skilled professionals within European healthcare systems. The value of TH services is highlighted in the Cochrane Review 2010 by Inglis et al on Telemonitoring in HF & COPD Cochrane Review 2011 by McLean et al, & the Whole System Demonstrator (WSD) findings announced in Dec. 2011.
CC&TH services have not yet progressed substantially beyond pilots & test installations. Such services require new behaviours, routines & ways of working directed at improving health outcomes, administrative efficiency, cost effectiveness & user experience (patient & health professional). Translating evidence into practice is complex & requires significant organisational change, ss well as overcoming related barriers.
The ACT programme is the first of its kind, in line with EIP objectives of deploying integrated care for chronically ill patients.
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The 2010 Ministerial Conference on eHealth – currently being organised by the forthcoming Spanish Presidency of the European Union and the European Commission – is a milestone in the process launched with the Commission Communication "eHealth – making healthcare better for European citizens: An action plan for a European eHealth Area", COM (2004) 256, and with the commitment undertaken by Member States to work together to facilitate learning and promote wider deployment for successful eHealth applications. The Conference – scheduled to take place in Barcelona on March 15-18, 2010 – supported the exchange of good practices and a forum involving National and Commission high level representatives to discuss about progresses on deployment and future directions of eHealth policies.
Support for the event organisation to the Spanish Presidency was foreseen in the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP), ICT Policy Support Programme (ICT PSP) Work Programme 2009 , under the section `Calls for tender and support measures implemented by grants in 2009`, which were specifically aimed at supporting studies, portal and/or common repositories, as well as conferences and events.
The High Level eHealth Conference 2010 was also intended and designed to support some of the objectives stipulated in the “Decision No 1350/2007/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2007 establishing a second programme of Community action in the field of health (2008-13)", such as: improved safety of the health of citizens, health promotion, dissemination of health information, increasing general awareness about healthcare and the collection, analysis and evaluation of healthcare information.
The Conference theme was focused on “eHealth for Sustainable Healthcare Delivery: global challenges through local actions”, emphasising the need for coordinated political, organizational and technical actions – at both local and national levels – to boost the potential of eHealth as an instrument for coping with the many challenges faced world-wide by national health systems.

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The conference on eHealth organized by the Presidency countries and the European Commission is a new milstone in the process launched with the Commission Communication "eHealth - making healthcare better for European citizens. An action plan for a European eHealth Area" COM (2004) 256 and the commitment of member states to work together to facilitate learning and promote wider deployment for successful eHealth applications. The ministerial conference eHealth for Individuals, Society and Economy will support the exchange of good practices and a forum involving National and Commission high level representatives to discuss progresses on deployment and future direction of ehealth policy.
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