eHealth Week 2017 was successfully organised, according to plan, from 10th to 12th May 2017. Around 1000 participants took part, 250 of whom were high-level delegates invited by the Presidency and the Commission.
High-level delegates from 25 EU member states, as well from Switzerland, Norway and the USA, accepted the Maltese Presidency’s invitation to attend the High Level eHealth Conference.
The organising parties were the Maltese Presidency, the Ministry for Health, the European Commission and HIMSS Europe. WHO/Europe was a collaborating partner in the planning and implementation of the event.
The High Level eHealth Conference has been an established annual appointment in the European calendar for more than 10 years. The 2017 Conference in Malta once again attracted a large number of senior policy makers from the field of eHealth, as well as from the health and IT sectors in general, from almost all the EU member states, providing an important opportunity to advance the EU’s eHealth agenda.
The conference programme succeeded in covering as many currently relevant issues in the fields of eHealth and related disciplines as was possible within the three days of the conference. There was emphasis on subjects that are of specific interest in the European Union, including the growth of the digital health economy, cross-border exchange of personal health data, and the implementation and health impact of the General Data Protection Regulation and the Network and Information Security Directive.
The High-Level Informal Working Lunch was held as planned on 10th May 2017. The highest level delegates were invited to this closed meeting. The participants discussed the health-related aspects of the mid-term review of the Digital Single Market, on the basis of a paper prepared by the Commission.
The Presidency and Commission exhibition stands on the eHealth Week Exhibition floor were designed, built, furnished and manned according to plan. They both served the intended purpose of engaging with conference delegates and providing information on the eHealth related activities of the Ministry for Health and the Commission.
The Malta session during the conference proved to be a valuable opportunity to present the work done on a Digital Health Strategy for Malta (2017-2021), the new “Next Generation” version of the myHealth portal and integrated nationwide eHealth deployments. The demonstrations carried out on the Malta stand at the exhibition were also well received by many conference delegates. A significant degree of interest was generated in Ministry of Health activity related to eHealth and digital health.
Thirty delegates took up the Ministry of Health’s offer of a visit to Mater Dei Hospital on 11th May 2017 to see Maltese eHealth systems in action in their natural context.
WHO/Europe’s participation helped to attract a wider range of eHealth policy makers. WHO highlighted the importance of public health, and the need to take a population view of health informatics and digital health at the same time as reaping the benefits of personalised medicine.
The co-location of the HIMSS Europe conference and exhibition had clear benefits, as in the past. HIMSS attracted stakeholders from industry and healthcare delivery who would normally not attend policy-oriented events. There were around three times as many participants who registered through the HIMSS registration system (circa 750) than those who registered through the Presidency system (250).
Dissemination took place through the five conference plenary sessions, the twenty seven conference parallel sessions, the High-Level Informal Working Lunch, the Speakers’ Corner, the Exhibition and the visit to Mater Dei Hospital. Informal dissemination also took place through delegate networking throughout the three days.
Information on the topics discussed at the conference was published on the eHealth Week 2017 website, as well as on the Maltese Presidency website. For the full eHealth Week programme, see
http://www.ehealthweek.org/ehome/198654/fullprogramme/(opens in new window).
Conference presentations were made publically available shortly after the conference on the eHealth Week website, supporting exploitation of the results. The session presentations are found at
http://www.ehealthweek.org/ehome/198654/2017-presentations/(opens in new window) while the Speakers’ Corner presentations are at:
http://www.ehealthweek.org/ehome/198654/speakers-corner-presentations/(opens in new window).
Various communication channels were used to encourage interested parties to take part in the High-Level eHealth Conference and the rest of eHealth Week. These included the eHealth Week website (www.ehealthweek.org) the Maltese Presidency website, the Commission website, the WHO/Euro website, a dedicated Twitter channel (@eHealthWeekEU), a Tweet chat, a Facebook page, various eNewsletters, Press releases, Opinion pieces, Blog posts, and various HIMSS Europe channels, including its YouTube Channel, Health IT Central and HIMSS Insights.
An eHealth Week Info Day was organised in Malta on 3rd March 2017 to raise the public profile of the event. This generated significant publicity for the event.
Detailed and up-to-date information on speakers, moderators and conference topics were communicated on an ongoing basis through the eHealth Week website and the dedicated eHealth Week 2017 mobile app during the run-up to eHealth Week and during the event itself. This remained available online after the event.
