03 Jun
  • By Lovexair
  • Cause in

Patient Empowerment, Sitges 2018 (ENG)

HIMSSEurope 2018 & Health 2.0, Sitges, Barcelona, May 27-29, gave all stakeholders the opportunity to share their views on how we engage better as citizens in this age of digital health and the incredible transformation taking place in healthcare and life sciences. Patient empowerment is really The peoples’ empowerment and the way we want technology to improve our health, quality of life, help us lead better lives and support us in care, without having to stumble through systems which have not yet adjusted to the 21st century and the technological advances in our grasp.

The potential for unblocking issues such as late and poor diagnosis, in many diseases or progressing towards personalised medicine & care support , thanks to predictive health data analytics, genomic profiling or patient-HCP connected platforms, is rapidly changing our future . Can we however unlock this potential and make it available to more people? This is still our challenge.

Digital health literacy, gaps in understanding , relevant training programs, viable business models or the issues around regulatory frameworks and compliance: confront all participants. Policy-makers are more advanced in developing economies such as Asia where the need to agilely service large populations who embrace the mobile economy, acts as a trigger, for some of our more sluggish western economies .Here, discomfort still exists, as well as budget constraints, to bring about a cultural change in traditional systems or even their replacement with extender resources serviced by new start-ups. The Netherlands presented Patients.ville , a model of our future homes, where we have devices and applications available to connect us via platforms, to our care centers, without transferring to hospitals and still be cared for. These pioneers are urging us forward ,working to connect real people to digital health solutions which are already available. So we can begin to see how our world is changing and our health can be managed differently no matter what age we are or what our condition: mental health, cancer or chronic disease.

The Estonian Government with the ECH Alliance and entrepreneurs such as Jordi Serrano Pons or Jaime del Bairro, President of the Spanish Association for Digital Health are creating dynamic environments where new business models, new ventures and partners with meaningful resources can connect and help us make the transition to innovative and equitative healthcare structures.

Our role from a patient organization’s perspective at Lovexair, is to embrace this opportunity as we can see significant benefits on the horizon.One where people can participate actively in education, training and where we can bring together partnering to build ecosystems around value-based care to be a key stakeholder in this new environment:facilitating tools for healthcare professionals and training educators who can work online & offline in chronic-care support and physical activity, specialising in respiratory diseases.

Many impressive solutions are emerging and changes are taking place but the real key take-home here is : what are the operational capabilities of scaled-up systems and how do we get more people using these new solutions at low-cost.

What know-how and ICT resources can we bring in to this new arena and how we can aggregate value with relevant partnering to deliver efficient & effective systems with measurable clinical outcomes?

HIMSSEurope 2018 & Health 2.0 presented the best opportunity for us to compare our progress in this arena with many individuals and organizations, confirm our strategy and carry on working together, especially in our case, for patients with chronic-respiratory disease in integral care-plans and physical activity.

From Lovexair, we are both delighted and grateful , to have played a significant role in this important event with Patients 2.0 Forum, the panel sessions on Empowerment & Digital Transformation, and hope to continue to advance with HIMSS & Health 2.0 leadership and their supportive teams or networks, to work on further activities in the years ahead and develop real patient engagement.

Shane Fitch,
CEO & Founder of The Lovexair Foundation