Perspective: Taking the eHealth communities on a journey to Europe

Three years ago, when The World of Health IT (WoHIT) first opened its doors in Geneva, one question dominated the floor: is there even a pan-European eHealth community which needs to be addressed by a pan-European eHealth event? The World of Health IT 2008 in Copenhagen revealed the need to further grow this community; the driving force behind it could be the European Commission together with the industry and the national healthcare IT conferences and exhibitions. By Armin Scheuer

Published: 11/12/2008

COPENHAGEN, DENMARK – (HealthTech Wire / Perspective) – I asked Werner Vandevelde, Global Manager Branding for AGFA Healthcare, if he thought Europe was ready for a common approach to eHealth. “We don’t have a choice,” he said. “We must get ready for it and conferences like The World of Health IT can certainly help create a European eHealth consciousness.”

However, he added, WoHIT seems to attract the academic community and the industry, that is groups operating outside national boundaries, rather than end-users.

Conscious-critical
Cultivating a pan-European consciousness has become “mission-critical” for the eHealth industry. Issues such as interoperability, standardization, legislation and accountability can only be solved together – under the regulatory umbrella of the European Commission.

I met with Neil Jordan, the worldwide managing director of Microsoft’s healthcare provider business. “A lot of the discussions that the Commission has had, a lot of the good work they have done and the papers they have delivered, haven’t really reached a practical implementation level yet,” Jordan said.

He said he had noticed a real call for the European Commission to connect directly with the needs of the individual hospitals and to spend time learning from the countries where they have solved certain issues: “There is a long way to go before healthcare IT systems are truly capable of supporting the healthcare provided rather than just documenting it – and the European Commission can be a powerful guiding force.”

A stronger connection
By co-organizing The World of Health IT, the European Commission certainly hoped to boost its connection with the European eHealth community. And after three years, the market has confirmed the need for a pan-European event, although the concept and the format may need to be rethought.

“A number of countries have well-established local or national shows – like ConhIT in Germany or HIT in France. There is a realization that it is difficult to mobilize the European market on two levels – organizing important national shows and on top adding the European dimension,” said Vandevelde.

While the vast majority of Germany’s 3.000 or so healthcare CIOs attend conhIT, the total number of German WoHIT delegates in 2008 was an astonishing 156! And Copenhagen staged Denmark’s own successful EPR conference just one week prior to WoHIT.

Klaus Stanglmayer, strategic product marketing manager for the speech recognition technology platform SpeechMagic, told me he thought it was very difficult to break into the well-established structures of the national healthcare IT communities. “These are small communities, with strong personal relationships. Rather than expecting them to join us on a European level, we are joining them on a national level – I think it is a better idea to start the journey towards Europe from there - together.”

A journey towards Europe
Co-locating WoHIT with the European Commission’s ministerial conference on eHealth will certainly help to better serve the existing community of industry professionals and academics, but will it attract additional end-users to the European eHealth community? Unless the concept is changed, the ministerial conference on eHealth will remain a closed event – by invitation only. WoHIT delegates will not be able to join the high-profile presentations at the ministerial conference, and the industry will have only limited options for becoming directly involved with the conference; which means that there is no real additional motivation for new delegates and companies to participate.

But perhaps the European Commission might consider a new approach – and decide to grow the European eHealth community from within. Maintaining the high-profile character of the ministerial conference, ensuring its independence and credibility and providing the professional environment needed to form European eHealth policies is crucial. To help push these policies through, the European Commission could focus on associating with or at least involving the events that already attract large numbers of end-users; that is to say the national healthcare IT shows.

Perhaps the day will come when some of these shows decide to move closer together and organize the “United Meeting of the European eHealth Conferences and Exhibitions”. It would certainly be a desirable development - with the European Commission having the power and means to initiate and guide it.

Armin Scheuer is the managing director of so2say communications - the company that operates HealthTech Wire. He can be contacted at armin.scheuer@so2say.com

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