Combat the second wave Corona with digital means

The resurgence of the Coronavirus across Europe and the rest of the world calls for attention. Now 30 European cluster regions have formulated a “joint declaration” about the creation of a common European Health Data Space that will make data and experiences available in the fight against covid-19.  

The aim is to create a reliable legal framework for cross-border exchange of health data across Europe and to meaningfully interlink functioning regional initiatives allowing data and “best practice” to be shared and used in the fight against the pandemic.  

“Now is the time to act! The lessons learned from the first wave of the pandemic need to be applied immediately,” reads the statement.  

Welfare Tech is co-signatory to the deceleration. Senior Consultant Karen Lindegaard says:  

– Digitisation of the healthcare sector has proven to be a powerful tool in the Corona context, in terms of data sharing, treatment and offering healthcare services at a distance.  

Strengthen the digital agenda together

Denmark is one of the countries in Europe that has the most digitalised healthcare systems, but many other countries are far behind. It is essential to engage in lifting all the countries in the EU, both because we must fight Corona together, but also because it is large potential markets for Danish health and care tech companies. 

– Germany, which currently holds the EU presidency, has put the digitalisation of European health systems on the agenda and Portugal, which will take over the presidency in January, is expected to continue this focus. The declaration is an opportunity for us to strengthen the agenda. The signatories of the declaration are primarily health clusters from all over Europe, and many of them are Welfare Tech’s partners. Together, we represent many thousands of companies and healthcare players, says Karen Lindegaard. 

The input and support for this declaration come from more than 15 countries known for their innovative digital health system as well as 30+ cluster and research regions where the pressure of corona infections has greatly accelerated existing digital care approaches.  

Among the countries are Estonia, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, the UK, Austria, Germany and Poland.   

In the declaration, the European experts propose concrete measures, such as:  

• All European citizens should retain control over their health data according to GDPR and be able to share them securely with authorised partners.  
• The EU must extend its harmonisation and interoperability efforts to data relevant to promote research, prevention and personalised care.  
• The EU needs a clearing agency for digital health applications in the fields of infectious diseases and control – under the umbrella of the ECDC (The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control) 
• To achieve faster digitisation of hospitals incentive systems modelled on the US government’s “meaningful use” program are recommended  
• To overcome the deployment gap of digital health in Europe, the establishment of a biennial research-based EU-wide monitoring-report on best practice examples is recommendable.  

You can see the declaration here

Article Source: https://en.welfaretech.dk/updates/2020/november/combat-the-second-wave-corona-with-digital-means