Kiruna, Norrbotten (S), 6 February 2014
The fourth bi-annual Arctic-Light e-He@lth Conference, ALEC 2014 took place in Kiruna and gathered 200 participants on the theme of the ‘co-creating patient’ on 4-6 February. Opened by President Ilves of Estonia, the conference featured an impressive panel of speakers, who sought to address both the technical and organisational aspects affecting the patient’s experience.
Data ownership, interoperability, security, accessibility, communication, shifting perceptions are but a few of the themes that were discussed in ALEC 2014. Indeed to achieve patients’ empowerment and better healthcare, infrastructure is essential but it should go hand in hand with true organisational change, trust and good contact between patients and caregivers. In this context sharing good but also bad practices, learning from each other’s experiences is key to achieve faster and more efficient deployment of innovative solutions.
Participants were therefore also encouraged to take part in the ENGAGED side event on “building a learning community for active and healthy ageing solutions”. ENGAGED is a process-oriented network, which brings together stakeholders from very different backgrounds around the emergence of innovative and sustainable active and healthy ageing (AHA) services that make best use of technology. Today’s workshop therefore was very interactive and led to the production of material, which will feed in upcoming workshops in an incremental way.
“During these 3 days we heard about successful initiatives from Europe and beyond. E-health is possible, it does provide more comfort, safety and a better link with caregivers. Now we need regional decision-makers to keep this momentum and engage in dialogue both within their regions and at interregional and national level to roll out e-health” said Agneta Granström, the AER e-He@lth Network President and County Commissioner of Norrbotten.
“E-health is not about technology only, but about empowering the patients and generating more social and territorial cohesion, Regions have a pivotal role in initiating effective change impulses and AER provides them with a tailor-made platform to scale up action” underlined AER President Dr Hande Özsan Bozatli.
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