High-Level e-health conference to investigate digital solutions

The Ministry of Social Affairs has entered into a cooperation agreement with the ECHAlliance to organise an international high-level e-health conference (www.ehealthtallinn2017.ee) during the Estonian Presidency of the EU Council and to bring to Estonia top performers of the field, as well as organisations outside of Europe.

The high-level e-health conference "Health in the Digital Society. Digital Society for Health", to be held on 16-18 October 2017 at Tallinn Creative Hub, will demonstrate how new technologies and the secure use of health data are changing both our lifestyle and health care.

Ain Aaviksoo, Deputy Secretary General for E-services and Innovation: “Innovative digital solutions can help us to provide safer, more convenient and efficient health services to all people in Europe, at the same time ensuring the security of health data and the protection of privacy."

"We also want to make sure that discussions on how to make citizens’ rights to manage their own health data, and free movement of the data in Europe, lead to concrete actions and outcomes beyond our Presidency. Every citizen should have the right and opportunity to digitally access their health data. The principle should be that health data is not secured preventing its use if necessary, but it should be possible to use data securely across borders for the benefit of individuals and the society.”

Brian O’Connor, Chairman of the (ECHAlliance): “We have been in cooperation with Estonia via the health technology sector for several years. ‘Estonian e-health has undergone immense development within the last 10 years. We are cooperating with the team at the Ministry of Social Affairs to guarantee a great programme and to bring top performers and high-level experts and organisations to Estonia.”

The three-day event in October will bring to Tallinn EU policymakers, health ministers from member states, patient organisations, consumer organisations, representatives from the IT and health sectors, healthcare leaders, health professionals, and scientists. The conference will focus on data-driven healthcare innovation from the perspective of citizens, professionals, and society, addressing citizens’ access to their health data and control over the use of data, cross-border use of health data in order to benefit treatment, research and innovation, and creating an environment that enables a digital single market in the health sector, overcoming barriers to data-driven innovation.

The high-level conference ‘Health in the Digital Society. Digital Society for Health’ is part of the Estonian presidency programme.

Additional information on Twitter: @eHealthTallinn, @ECHAlliance and #eHealthTallinn