13.05.2013
E-Health High Level Conference /Dublin/ Neelie Kroes Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for the Digital Agenda
Exploiting the potential of eHealth
First of all I would like to thank
Minister Reilly and the Irish Presidency for hosting the Ministerial
conference at this eHealth Week 2013. The eHealth Week is approaching
its teenage-years – this year is the 11th –
so we should embrace the teenager attitude: full of enthusiasm and
energy, ready to discover and innovate. Dublin is an excellent place for
this approach, being a hotspot for technology and start-ups.
Today life expectancy often
exceeds 80 years. Your children and grandchildren can expect a longer
life: that's a triumph. An armoury of thousands of medicines and
treatments contribute to that achievement, helping us address the vast
majority of diseases.
Those are all positive things. But
they also bring challenges which we must respond to. We must care for
that ageing population, and ensure they stay active, healthy and happy.
Our healthcare model is under pressure, in a world where there's more
chronic and degenerative conditions. And yet those same health systems,
like so much else at the moment, face up to a lack of resources.
There's a huge potential in eHealth:
- To help people stay active and independent for longer.
- To offer better public services at less cost.
- But also to stimulate a strong EU market that could serve our citizens – and compete globally.
We already have a good
knowledge-base and great capacity for innovation on eHelath; with the
right political support we can use those assets.
The Commission eHealth Action
Plan, adopted in December, is about going further, looking ahead to
2020, making eHealth really happen, and addressing some remaining
challenges for eHealth, such as:
- Interoperability: how can we make eHealth tools and services work together within and between regions?
- Research and development: how the new EU programme Horizon 2020 will support ICT-enabled innovation, on new health tools, treatments and systems centred on users.
- Deployment: including through EU funding like the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme and the European Regional Development Fund, and possibly the future Connecting Europe Facility.
- Improving digital skills and health literacy, as well as improving the evidence base about the impact of eHealth.
- International cooperation: this Wednesday, there will be a second workshop on the EU–US Memorandum of Understanding, right here in Dublin.
These are all relevant
issues in our pursuit of our common aim: to encourage eHealth to be
deployed and used more widely, and more effectively.
Now we need to implement the actions identified in the eHealth action plan, and we take that very seriously.
We continue to work on the European
Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing. It's a great way
for those directly involved to get together, share their experiences and
learn; you'll hear a lot about it in the coming days.
Another very relevant area is
mobile apps for mobile health and wellbeing, which empower people to
easily take control of their own health; the Commission is working on a
Green Paper which will launch a public debate on that issue.
On research and innovation, the
Commission is currently negotiating proposals for eHealth funding under
EU research Framework Programme 7; and from June it will be evaluating
proposals under the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme.
That's just a flavour of what
we're doing from the Commission. But that's not the whole story. Often,
the right instruments lie in other hands: from Finance Ministers to
regional governments; researchers to carers; insurers and venture
capitalists to digital entrepreneurs.
And of course, you: national
Health Ministers. So really our plan is about us working together: this
is the key to our common success. I hope we can put that into practice
over the coming days.
Thank you
