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EU4Health 2021-2027 is Adopted: Resilience, Innovation and Accessibility

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On March 26, the European Commission announced the entry into force of the new EU4Health Programme to support the resilience and innovation of health systems across Europe throughout the period 2021-2027. With a budget of EUR 5.1 billion for investments in the health sector, the EU4Health 2021-2027 programme is financially the largest health programme ever launched!

The adoption of the new EU4Health programme comes at a time when health systems and industries across the world have faced unparalleled threats, and it embodies the EU’s long-term response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As stated by the European Commission Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, Stella Kyriakides: “The entry into force of our EU4Health Programme will give us the tools at hand to make long-standing changes in public health. This unprecedented budget of €5.1 billion will enable us to make targeted investments to enhance our crisis preparedness and build stronger, more resilient and more accessible health systems. This is what our citizens rightfully expect from a European Health Union” (European Commission – Press Release, Brussels, 26/03/2021).

Key actions under the new EU4Health programme

EU4Health 2021-2027 will provide investments for ambitious actions that will contribute to the development of resilient, unified, innovative and accessible healthcare across Europe.

  1. Boost EU’s preparedness for major cross-border health threats, by creating
    • reserves of medical supplies for crises
    • a reserve of healthcare staff and experts that can be mobilised to respond to the crises across the EU
    • Increased surveillance of health threats
  2. Strengthen health systems so that they can face epidemics as well as long-term challenges by stimulating
    • disease prevention and health promotion in an ageing population
    • digital transformation of health systems
    • access to health care for vulnerable groups
  3. Make medicines and medical devices available and affordable, advocate the prudent and efficient use of antimicrobials as well as promote medical and pharmaceutical innovation and greener manufacturing

(EU4Health 2021-2027 – A vision for a healthier European Union)

To implement the new health programme, the EU established a dedicated new executive agency, the Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA) operating since April 1.

Future Calls

Calls for projects under the new EU4Health Programme have not been published yet. Updates will be made available by the European Commission in the dedicate webpage. The AER will inform its members and other stakeholders whenever a call for project is launched and will provide support for partner searches. Additionally, the AER is willing to continue its work and contribute with its expertise in the health sector by joining a consortium as partner with particular regard to digital health, management and capacity-building in the healthcare sector.

Additional Funding

Additional funding for health policies will be provided through other programmes making the total funding amount up to 9.4 billion. Funding programmes are:

Don’t hesitate to get in touch with the AER project Unit!

Contact: Birgit Sandu ([email protected])

Photo from Unsplash @nci

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AER series on investments: Episode 1

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The Prodi High Level Task Force

As a follow-up on the AER conference on sustainable financing for the regions, AER will be publishing a series of articles on investments. These will provide deeper insight on the different financing tools available for regions, which were presented on the occasion of this conference.

Maximising public value

AER is participating in the work currently being carried out at European level on long term investments. On the occasion of the Spring plenary meeting,  Jonathan Watson, Managing Director of the Think Tank INTEGRATE updated AER members on the EC High-Level Task Force on financing social infrastructure and maximising public value, also called the Prodi High Level Task Force. This Task Force is providing inputs to the Commission on how current instruments should be completed in particular in the field of long-term investments for health, education and housing.

This Task Force was set up by the European Association of Long Term Investors and the Think Tank Integrate and  is supported by Jirki Katainen and the European Investment Bank. The Chair of the High-Level Task Force is Romano Prodi and Deputy Chair is Christian Sautter. Two working groups are working on current investment patterns in the public sector by sector and by geography on one hand and future patterns on the other hand.

AER member region Arad (RO) is contributing to the work of the first working group, it is possible for another region to contribute to the group which will look at future patterns.

Reworking how the public sector mobilises finance for social infrastructure

The High-Level Task Force for Social Infrastructure investment while maximising public value formally launched in February 2017. While there is undoubted interest in what the dialogue it moderates between social and financial sector experts will say when the final report is delivered in December 2017, it is not about changing current regulations. Instead it will focus on doing things differently in order to

  • overcome the current shortage in social infrastructure investment especially for lifelong education, health and social care and affordable housing
  • address the gap in the finance industry’s ability to arrange financeable social infrastructure projects on behalf of the public sector.

 

Help secure the inflow of investable projects

A common message is already emerging. There is a need to include new measures that will help secure the inflow of investable projects to the various funds available: public, private and third sector. These new measures have yet to be identified and agreed but a key challenge that will remain at the end of the Task Force exercise will be how we ensure the generation of credible investment opportunities that are to scale and how to better blend different funding streams during a project’s lifecycle. For example, it has been suggested that the pipeline of EFS projects can be improved by creating investment platforms that bring together smaller projects from the same sector. This tool needs other tools and resources because it won’t succeed alone.

For the public sector a particular issue is how it mobilises finance for social infrastructure. This needs some reworking in ways that unlock social infrastructure investment from political cycles. Specifically, it involves adopting prevention as a strategic principle for planning and investment, finding ways to improve local capacity to absorb capital and knowing how to ‘sell’ the added value from social infrastructure investment.

Next steps

The presentation on the Prodi High Level Task Force at the AER plenaries in London will be followed up by a workshop in Brussels in September which will consider exemplar pipelines (R20, European Fund for SE Europe, the High Road Predevelopment pipeline) and what needs to happen to improve the generation of projects locally including a role for intermediation platforms with non-profit dealmakers.

If your region is interested in contributing to the work of the High Level Task Force, please contact AER Coordinator for Policy and Knowledge Transfer Johanna Pacevicius.

Related articles

Committees’ Spring Plenary

Long term Investments, the EU and you

 

 

 

 

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What can the Investment Plan for Europe do for health?

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Today, in Brussels, Member States and regional representatives, healthcare service providers, public and private investors, economists, and practice innovators, participate in a Seminar on strategic investments for the future of healthcare, organised by the European Commission.

A vital economic sector

Health is a vital economic sector representing 10% of the EU’s GDP and accounting for 8% of the total workforce in the 28 EU countries. Today’s seminar explores what the Investment Plan for Europe can do for health: What types of investments are needed in the health sector? Which funding streams can support these investments? How can we invest to ensure successful implementation of new care models? These are just some of the questions that will be raised.

The Seminar was opened by Jyrki Katainen, Vice-President of the European Commission and Ambriose Falloye, Vice-President of the European Investment Bank with closing remarks by Vytenis Andriukaitis, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, who points out that: “Health authorities in the European Union and beyond are looking at ways to transform healthcare delivery through innovative and integrated healthcare models. This requires smart investment and creative approaches. Indeed, it may be difficult, but not impossible. From the Commission’s side, we will continue to promote the opportunities offered by the Investment Plan for Europe. As far as I am concerned, two key words are: “collaboration” and “partnerships”. I thus welcome this event and encourage a continuous engagement. If there is political will and if all stakeholders – politicians, care professionals, patients, technology providers and investors – are committed to working together, then we can make our healthcare systems effective, accessible, sustainable and resilient so they can face future societal challenges.”

Working together for innovation

This was also the core of the message of the event AER organised last December “E-health: Let’s find a common language” to bring together stakeholders who are not always used to work together for health innovation.

The report from the Commission’s seminar on EFSI for health will be available on DG Santé’s website shortly.

The EFSI Fact sheet on mobilising funds for the health sector provides a  series of tips and examples on how the European Investment Plan for Europe can be utilised for
• Medical research
• Innovative products, services and delivery solutions (including
by SMEs, mid-caps and start-ups)
• New models of health infrastructure especially for primary and
integrated forms of care
• New technologies and e-health
• Medical education and training

EFSI will also be discussed during the joint AER-LGIU conference “Mind the gap: Sustainable financing for the regions” which will feature speakers on long term investing and impact investing”.

Finally AER is also cooperating with the High Level task Force on financing social infrastructure and maximising public value at the European Commission. AER regions interested in shaping the next Investment Plan for Europe should contact AER Coordinator for Policy & Knowledge Transfer Johanna Pacevicius

Useful links

EFSI fact Sheet on mobilising funds for the health sector

DG Santé Website

AER Committee on Social Policy and Public Health

AER event “Investing in the future: new perspectives for the regions”

Related articles

Long term Investments, the EU and you

E-health: how to find a common language?

E-health, connect the dots: connect people

E-health: the future of healthcare!

Photo credits: Crew @unsplash https://unsplash.com/@crewFollow AER!

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ALEC 2017: accelerating Digital Health

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The 1 and 2 February 2017 the fifth Artic Light E-health Conference is taking place in Luleå, Sweden. Top-level thought leaders, politicians, business innovators and e-health professionals will meet to discuss and develop tools to design better health and networking.

Two main themes of the Conference: the Digital Transformation of Healthcare and Health Equity in the Digital Age.

The Digital Transformation of Healthcare

Digital Transformation is the whole scale change to the foundational components of healthcare: from its operating model to the infrastructure, from the services provided, to who receives them. It touches every function of healthcare: workforce training, HR, finance, reimbursement and evaluation models, through operations, technology, communication and business development.

Healthcare is affected by all changes occurring in society, from patient behaviours to tech, commerce and service sectors. Understanding the key challenges may let better understand which strategy to take and the priorities and capabilities needed to manage the digital transformation.

The key challenges are:

  • The level of maturity required for the health and social care system to adopt digital and integrated care solutions
  • The barriers hindering wide scale uptake of technology enabled care
  • The need to challenge the role of the health profession and reshape it for the digital transformation ahead.

Learning today how to build digital health eco-systems, innovative business models and accelerating the translation of ideas will help to catch up with the future transformations and build sustainable solutions.

The potential of digital healthcare lies in improving quality of care, boosting innovation, empowering patients and creating a sustainable healthcare system.

Health Equity in the Digital Age

The importance of dealing with Health Equity lies in the belief that everyone deserves a chance to lead a healthy life no matter the socio-economic status, demographic factors or the country of origin.

Digital health technologies can play an active role to reduce health disparities, improve health outcomes, and the potential of digital to improve access to high quality health information for vulnerable groups. How is the key question.

The key challenges of creating Health Equity are:

  • Providing care in underserved communities with poor healthcare and digital infrastructures
  • The barriers of low digital and health literacy for adoption of digital solutions among vulnerable groups
  • How technology has improved or hindered the delivery of quality care.

Accelerating innovation by sharing data can improve healthcare. Understanding how digital strategies empower people will make possible reaching remote communities, helping to eliminate health disparities, developing solutions that are adapted for people’s different physical and cognitive abilities, addressing low digital health literacy among vulnerable groups.

The evolution of new health technologies promises a better and deeper insights into people care needs and also through healthy beahviour changes, accelerating health development.

At ALEC there is the opportunity to understand the value of digital health and gain fresh perspectives, learning and being inspired by the global thought leaders shaping the future of digital health.

 

Photo credit Diana Robinson @Flickr http://tinyurl.com/hkglmadFollow AER!

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Long term Investments, the EU and you

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Are you the regional expert we need?

AER has been invited to name one or two experts for the work currently being carried out at European level on long term investments. Does your region want to be involved?

A High-Level Task Force on financing social infrastructure and maximising public value is being set up by the European Association of Long Term Investors and the Think Tank Integrate. This High-Level Task Force is supported by EC Vice President Jirki Katainen and the European Investment Bank. The Chair of the High-Level Task Force will be Romano Prodi and Deputy Chair Christian Sautter.

Direct impact on future funding for regions

The Task Force will look at long-term investments for health, education and housing in particular in order to complete current instruments. The conclusions of the Task Force will be the basis for a Juncker Plan 2 in these areas. Your involvement in this Task force will, therefore, have a substantial impact.

AER has been invited to contribute to this initiative to provide the regional perspective. An AER regional expert (civil servant) can be nominated to one of the below mentioned technical working groups. Political engagement will also be needed for the formal meetings and the lobbying actions.

Two working groups of 10 people will work on long-term investments in social infrastructure:

-The first group will meet 6 times in the 6 first months to look at investment patterns in the public sector by sector and by geography.

-The second group will meet 5 times in the following 6 months and should estimate what the future patterns will be, as a function of how public authorities and sector/geography-specific public services seek to adapt to macro trends e.g. changing demography, epidemiology, technology etc. – again, by sector and by geography.

 

If you are interested in participating in this initiative, please contact AER Coordinator for Policy & Knowledge transfer Johanna Pacevicius

 

Photo credit: “Spectacle” Thomas Abbs @Flickr https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/Follow AER!

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A recognition of excellence

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The 2016 European Summit on Innovation for Active and Healthy Ageing was an opportunity to highlight the excellent initiatives from regions across Europe. The Summit brought together diverse stakeholders to boost Europe’s competitive advantage in the Silver Economy

The Silver what?

Europe is growing older and while this is a challenge because society has to adapt its strategies, products and services, it could also be an opportunity. Indeed in terms of world demographic trends, Europe will become older first. If Europe innovates first it will get a competitive advantage. If a large part of the population is getting older this means also a new market is being created, hence the reference to the Silver economy. the Silver Economy is believed to grow faster than the Green Economy, which says something about its potential.

The Silver Economy covers new market opportunities arising from public and consumer expenditure related to the rights, needs and demands of the (growing) population over 50.<br>Public spending on ageing in the EU accounts for 25% of GDP and 50% of general government expenditure and is projected to grow by 4% of GDP until 2060 (see the Commission’s 2015 Ageing report).

The European Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing

The Innovation Union strategy outlines the way the European Commission decided to support European competitiveness and tackle societal challenges. The focus is on research and innovation.

The European Commission has identified active and healthy ageing/ demographic change as a major societal challenge common to all European countries. It also presents considerable potential for Europe to lead the world in health innovation.

The Innovation Partnerships are one of the elements of the Innovation Union strategy. The Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing (EIP-AHA) brings together end users, public authorities, industry, all actors in the innovation cycle, and those engaged in standardisation and regulation.

The Partnership’s objective is to improve the framework conditions for uptake of innovation: Funding and investments in innovation need to be leveraged. But funding for research and innovation in European territories also needs to be more coherent and better coordinated.

Recognising excellent practices

Last year at the Conference of Partners of the EIP-AHA Günther Oettinger, EC Commissioner for the Digital Economy & Society announced a new Call for Reference sites. A total of 74 regional and local organisations have been awarded “Reference Site” status. The Reference Sites awards showcased the commitment of these local and regional organisations to invest over €4 billion in connected health and care for the ageing population until 2019 – an investment expected to benefit at least 4 million people across Europe.

8 AER member regions were among the winners: Catalonia (ES) ****, City of Zagreb (HR)*, East of France (FR)**, Friuli Venezia Giulia (IT)***, Ile de France (FR), Murcia (ES)**, Norrbotten (SE)***, Noord-Brabant Province (NL)***, Nouvelle-Aquitaine (FR)**.

Creating a shared vision

The European Innovation Partnership managed to engage stakeholders in the drafting of a shared vision on IT health innovation. This shared vision is known as the “Blueprint, digital transformation of health and care for the ageing society”. The Blueprint outlines how the journey of emerging digital “innovation to market” can be eased. It is also a manifesto for the alignment of innovation, economic and industrial policies with health and social care policies and with users’ and patients’ needs.  The Blueprint was handed over to Commissioner Oettinger by the Blueprint Champion and AER Member Encarna Guillen, Regional Health Minister from Murcia, ES.

This is also very much in line with the work AER carried out during its workshop on stakeholder engagement in health innovation ecosystems and the event it organised together with its partner networks “E-health: let’s find a common language”

Upcoming events

The ALEC 2017 event on 1-2 February will be an opportunity to further improve the dialogue between stakeholders. AER will, in particular, moderate a workshop on tapping into social capital and the engagement of carers and patients in integrated care systems.

 

ALEC 2017

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AER regions & ParkinsonNet: joint action on centered health care

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AER and the Province of Gelderland (NL) joined their effort in launching a project development initiative for AER regions in order to share experiences and work together on centered health care.

On 18th-20th May, a motivated group of participants among which AER Secretariat, Norrbotten, Jönköping, Värmland (SE), Kleve (DE) and Western Islands (Scotland) had a fruitful discussion in Nijmegen (NL) on E-health, self-care, participatory role for patients, building a network, changing the way healthcare is financed and other topics related to health care innovations. The purpose of the meeting was to exchange knowledge and experiences with patient-centered care systems across the EU and to explore opportunities for a joint project development.

The meeting was enriched by the presentation of the best practices that have emerged from the Radboud University Medical Center in Nijmegen and in particular the ParkinsonNet model, as an example of an innovative patient-centered care ecosystem that has been highly successful in the Netherlands and beyond (with ongoing applications in the US).

ParkinsonNet is an initiative of Radboud University Medical Centre that was created in 2004 in order to develop an innovative approach and ecosystem to offer Parkinson’s disease patients the best possible care, as well as to improve their quality of life by improving Parkinson-specific expertise and supporting personalised healthcare. Over the years, ParkinsonNet has built a network and national infrastructure of specialised care and provides to disseminate best practices aimed to optimise the quality of care in a patient oriented approach.

During the meeting AER members have explored the opportunities that e-health innovations and patient-centered ecosystems such as ParkinsonNet may deliver for care-systems in various EU regions and have expressed their interest to explore the potential of developing a joint inter-regional project on patient-centered care.

AER regions and partners willing to be involved in this initiative and interested to the ParkinsonNet model can contact the AER Secretariat.

Visit the event page to get all documents and information on the AER & Gelderland study visit and project development meeting.Follow AER!

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EU Health Award launched!

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The European Union Health Policy Forum (EUHPF), is a communication platform between the European Commission and health stakeholders that brings together umbrella organisations representing European stakeholders in the fields of public health and healthcare, with the aim of helping to ensure the EU’s Health Strategy is open, transparent and responds to public concerns. AER has been a member of the platform, where it has been representing regions for several years.

In this context, the European Commission just launched its new EU Health Award, which this year will recognise and reward the efforts and achievements of European NGOs towards reducing the threat to human health from antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The call for applications focuses in fields such as:

· Prevention of infection

· Appropriate use of antimicrobials

· Surveillance

· Tackling AMR from a specific disease perspective (e.g. Tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS…).

· Other initiatives that can reduce the threat to human health from AMR.

Prizes are as follows:
  • 1st prize:             20 000 €
  • 2nd prize:           15 000 €
  • 3rd prize:            10 000 €
International, European, national and regional non-governmentalbodies legally registered in the EU Member States or another country participating in the 3rd Health Programme are eligible (Iceland, Norway, Serbia).
The EU Health Award Team invites you to submit your application online before the 31 July 2016.
For more information you can go to:
 
• Twitter @EU_Health 
 
• Contact mail: [email protected]
 

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New Call under the 3rd Health Programme

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A new Call for Proposals has been launched on 28 October 2015 on “Support Member States under particular migratory pressure in their response to health related challenges” as an amendment under the 3rd Health Programme.

The decision of the amendment to the work programme 2015 is available at the Directorate General for Health and Food Safety website. Following the adoption of the amendment, a new call for proposals of projects has been launched by Chafea. You can access all the information here.

The deadline for submissions is on 12 November 2015.Follow AER!

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Public Procurement of Innovation – opportunity for regions

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Seize the excellent opportunity that the European Commission is offering to regional and local authorities that are ready to deploy or scale up innovative solutions in the coming 2-3 years in the field of AHA (ie. procure innovative solutions for active and healthy ageing, integrated care etc.).
What you can gain: co-finance up to 35% of the procurement costs, benefit from free of charge capacity building and attend tailored events and/or webinars in October that will allow you to prepare for the upcoming H2020 call on ‘Public Procurement of Innovation’ as well as to network with similar organisation from other existing networks and initiatives. Please express your interest by email as soon as possible: EC-EIP-AHA(at)ec.europa.euFollow AER!

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3rd Health Programme

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The 3rd Health Programme call for proposals for projects is open until 15 September 2015, featuring 5 topics:

All information can be found here.Follow AER!

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Funding opportunities for better healthcare

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The topics under the 3rd health programme include:
– Gathering knowledge and exchanging best practices on measures reducing availability of alcoholic beverages
– Early diagnosis and treatment of viral hepatitis
– Early diagnosis of tuberculosis
– Support for the implementation and scaling up of good practices in the areas of integrated care, frailty prevention, adherence to medical plans and age-friendly communities
– Common assessment methodology on quality, safety and efficacy of transplantation therapies

Opening date: 05.06.2015
Budget: 9.000.000 €
Deadline date: 15.09.2015

Visit the 3rd health programme webpageFollow AER!

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Seminar on integrated care systems

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During the seminar we aimed to explore the topics of independence and inclusion specifically. The event was an opportunity to attain significant information on the implementation of Ehealth practices, share experiences with peers and engage regions for political action at European level. Many regions are already implementing innovative policies to encourage the growth of the silver economy and build inclusive societies. Interregional cooperation and mutual learning approaches are therefore key to fast track age-friendly innovation in Europe.

This seminar was organised in the context of the SmartCare project for the deployment of integrated care systems in regions.

Documents and presentations:

Detailed programme

Brochure and conclusions

Soo Hun, programme manager NHS Northern Ireland, Pilot region
currently deploying integrated care systems

Maria del Pilar Lopez, Murcia (ES), Member of the SmartCare Committed
Regions Board preparing for future deployment of integrated care systems

Gwen Mooney (IRL), Service Manager, Older People Services, HSE West,
Ireland

Manuel Escolano Puig, Vice Minister of Personal Autonomy and
Dependence Valencia (ES)

Medzait Ljatifi, County Councillor, Nordjylland (DK) on the regional
strategy for integrated care and inclusion.

Denise Curran (IRL), Service Manager for the Donegal HSE Physical and
Sensory Disability Services (speech here)

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