The 15th eHealth Network meeting took place in Bucharest, Romania on 11th and 12th June 2019. Both co-chairs opened the 1st day session, starting with the approval of the agenda. Under the first topic, eHDSI implementation, the eHN approved the going live of 3 countries: Estonia, Malta and Portugal, that will offer ePrescriptions and/or patient summaries for their own citizens and for foreign ones.
A representative of CEN (the European Committee for Standardization) presented the results of the International Patient Summary Standards Project, funded by the Commission and aimed at the creation of a global level Patient Summary specification to transpose into a European standard. Closing off the first topic, the Commission presented the European Court of Auditors’ report on the implementation of the Cross-border Healthcare Directive.
The second topic covered was Interoperability and Sustainability, starting with the presentation of D6.1 Roadmap on future eHDSI use cases and features by a representative of gematik (Germany), who presented the legal environment of the eHDSI in a report aimed at a non-lawyer audience as well. Greece continued with the Guidelines for IT interoperability presentation, aimed at facilitating co-operation between hospitals. A representative of Portugal presented the work on the Common Semantic Strategy;the eHealth Network decided to set up a Member State sub-group on semantics, with the participation of Finland, Croatia, Germany, Portugal, France, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Spain, Hungary, Netherlands, Slovakia and Romania. France followed with the information note on Integration in national policies and sustainability of the eHDSI. Both Commission and Member State co-chairs underlined the importance of this work. The Czech Republic closed the topic by presenting a draft report on Best practices on data protection at national level.
Estonia opened the third topic, Patient Empowerment & Patient Access to Health Data, presenting the draft policy framework for empowering people focused on mHealth, telehealth, patient access and digital health literacy. Ireland showed the approach they had taken to the task of developing a common competence framework to measure e-skills among health professionals and map training actions.
In the afternoon, there was a brainstorming session with EU Agencies and stakeholders on eHealth activities: Assessing the impact of digital transformation of health services; Immunisation / vaccination; Common Security framework for eHealth; Use of health data, big data, health analytics.
Regarding EU eHealth Sustainability and Planning, the Member States co-chair presented the 2019 – 2021 plan for the eHealth Network as agreed in the previous meeting (November 2018). Afterwards, Romania presented its national ehealth strategy and intention to join the eHDSI.
The second day’s agenda started with a second session on EU eHealth Sustainability and Planning. Roberto Viola, Director General of DG CNECT, presented the Commission Recommendation on a European Electronic Health Record Exchange Format.
About the topic Investment guidelines, the Commission provided an overview of the various funding opportunities likely to be available under the next Multiannual Financial Framework 2021-27. Austria presented the draft investment guidelines, intended to be a tool to orient EU actors towards funding/purchasing choices that foster interoperable digital health.
Finally, the Commission (DG SANTE) provided an outline of provisional plans to launch a study to identify potential legal and regulatory gaps in the field of digital health.