Around the World

A paradigm, policy, platform and prescription for wellness and better health. All around the world healthcare systems are facing increasing pressures and demands. Well developed countries are facing challenges related to ageing population and epidemics such as Diabetes or Obesity while developing countries struggle to leverage diagnostics and access to affordable medicines. All health systems…

Due to population ageing and advances in medical science, people with chronic diseases are living longer, which has become a challenge and a problem for the society. The challenges include how healthcare systems can cope with the cost burden of chronic disease, sustain quality independent living for patients and ensure sustainable healthcare and social care…

The global burden of cancer is increasing faster than ever and given the impact of COVID-19 on cancer services, it is now crucial that the full potential of laboratory diagnostics for cancer is realised. Laboratory diagnostics play a vital role in prevention (when 30-50% of cancers could be prevented (1) and in achieving better patient…

Data protection and privacy still entail further developments and high investment in order to positively impact trust and citizen reliability on digital services and tools. Today, almost all (if not all) societal activities, especially in the health field, involve the collection and processing of large amounts of data. Technological advancement, with an emphasis on the…

Federated health data networks (FHDNs) have emerged as an attractive solution to ‘freeing’ health data enabling this data to stay at the institutions they are collected at whilst allowing partnering institutions send queries and algorithms to run on the data. Although FHDNs may be a solution to the data silos and privacy concerns in healthcare…

Round Table 4 report presents the findings of a multistakeholder Round Table consultation focused on the actions that are needed at a European level, facilitated by the European Health Data Space, and actions required by other stakeholders across Europe. The actions are neededto maximise the availability of high quality and interoperable health data on a…

Society needs to scale up a collective capability to learn at scale from health data, to improve health care and to accelerate research. Despite increasing volumes of health data being collected in digital form there are many barriers to widening the uses of it. Many of the barriers are well recognised, but they now need…

INTRODUCTION This document is a short overview of the “Community Collaboration Concept”, which has been developed within the European ERASMUS+ Project called ‘Embracing DEmeNtia’, in short, the EDEN Project. The EDEN project has as main objective to create awareness about the importance of dealing with dementia as a community challenge and not only as an…

This qualitative descriptive study explored needs, issues, and expectations on dementia care at home as expressed by relatives of people living with dementia (PwD), health and social care professionals (HSCPs), and members of civil society organisations (CSOs) from four European countries. A focus group method- ology integrated with individual semi-structured interviews was adopted to collect…

This viewpoint summarizes the discussion that occurred during the “Translating Policy to Practice in Telehealth–Lessons from Global Implementation Experiences” panel that was held virtually at Telemedicon2020, December 18-20, 2020. This panel brought together policy and implementation experts from some countries of South Asia, Kuwait, and the European Union to share their experiences in the development…

This report has been prepared by the Digital Health and Care Directorate of the Scottish Government July 2021. It provides an update on the scale-up and adoption of digital health and care solutions in Scotland, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The document builds upon a previous report that was prepared by the Scottish Government…

Refreshed strategy which sets out how we will work together to improve the care and wellbeing of people in Scotland by making best use of digital technologies in the design and delivery of services, in a way, place and time that works best for them. Joint Foreword In 2018, Scotland’s first Digital Health and Care…

Enormous potential for development of innovative health solutions and improved patient outcomes exist if access to real-world health data can be enabled.  However, wide-spread sharing or access to this and other health data, between healthcare stakeholders (e.g. healthcare organizations, researchers etc), is highly limited due to concerns about consent, ownership, data protection and interoperability. Federated…

Background: Multimorbidity measures are useful for resource planning, patient selection and prioritization, and factor adjustment in clinical practice, research, and benchmarking. We aimed to compare the explanatory performance of the adjusted morbidity group (GMA) index in predicting relevant healthcare outcomes with that of other quantitative measures of multimorbidity. Methods: The performance of multimorbidity measures was…

One of the greatest mysteries of the COVID-19 pandemic is why some people fall severely ill while others suffer nary a sniffle. Now, after compiling data from around the world, researchers have determined that the answer seems to lie, in part, in genetics. Through an international meta-analysis of studies from more than 20 countries, hundreds…

This report, produced by NAPC Digital – NAPC’s digital adoption programme, brings into focus insights from the programme’s support to NHS sites and suppliers during the COVID-19 pandemic. It explores the rapid adoption of technology across healthcare during the pandemic and shows how this can go much further to improve population health and workforce wellbeing.…

Ministerial foreword When facing the greatest public health emergency that this country has tackled for generations, one of the most impactful tools at our disposal was the power of data. With the facts, data, and science at our disposal, we can provide the meaningful and measurable results that the public deserves. Data identified those who…

During the last few years, there has already been a solid discussion and political will, transversal to most European countries, on the need to invest in prevention, promoting healthier living environments and person-centred digital solutions. In short, it seems that consensus on the need to move forward and invest in wellbeing and quality of life…

A SPECIAL FOREWORD BY ECHALLIANCE CHAIR BRIAN O’ CONNOR Dear all, This report marks more than 10 years of creating and fostering collaborations across borders and silos. We have learned a lot during that time. On occasions, we may have gone down the wrong road yet, despite that, we were able to accomplish so much.…

The renewed information systems model will become more collaborative and sustainable. The use of open standards defines the strategy of the new electronic medical record of Catalonia and presents an opportunity for the Catalan technology sector. Information systems for data collection and clinical information of patients, share the need to have an architecture and a…

SOURCE: http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Diagnostics_for_Better_Health_Considerations_for_Globa_%20Implementation_2021.pdf

I write this article in a sad days where the Coronavirus pandemic is again causing a growth in cases of contamination, hospitalization and deaths around the world. We are slowly returning to where we were a few months ago. On the part of governments, increasingly drastic measures are being taken to curb this growth. We…

A few weeks ago, pre-COVID-19, I was literally putting the finishing touches to a paper: “A review of major service change in the NHS in Scotland 2010 – 2019: Place, Pace, and Politics.” It was to be the cornerstone of a suite of papers, analysing the pace of change in NHS in Scotland including political…

Humankind has never had a more urgent task than creating broad immunity for coronavirus. One of the questions I get asked the most these days is when the world will be able to go back to the way things were in December before the coronavirus pandemic. My answer is always the same: when we have…

Summary The Lancet Countdown is an international, multidisciplinary collaboration, dedicated to monitoring the evolving health profile of climate change, and providing an independent assessment of the delivery of commitments made by governments worldwide under the Paris Agreement. The 2019 report presents an annual update of 41 indicators across five key domains: climate change impacts, exposures, and vulnerability;…

Each generation of human being is convinced that their time is one of the most difficult and complex. The difference in what is happening with our society today, says Joan Cornet Prat, Board Member and Director of the Digital Health Observatory, ECHAlliance and Technical Engineer and Psychologist,  is that we face a new paradigm in the form…

This biennial publication presents a set of key indicators of health status, determinants of health, health care resources and activities, quality of care, health expenditure and financing in 35 European countries, including the 27 European Union member states, 5 candidate countries and 3 EFTA countries. The selection of indicators is based largely on the European…

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One of the biggest impacts of new technology – and perhaps the most life-changing – will be felt in healthcare. Diagnosis of illness will be fast and efficient, and medicine will be highly personalised. Wearable technology will be the norm, and we’ll know we are sick before we even get a single symptom. Meanwhile, new…

Humans have been able to survive mostly thanks to technology, so how will that change in the future?  Joan Cornet Prat, Board Member and Director of the Digital Health Observatory, ECHAlliance and Technical Engineer and Psychologist discusses how we’ll cope in the future.  At around 1300 BC the Greeks, Phoenicians and Hebrews changed the world…

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