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ICT CIP – Competitive and Innovation Programme

UNIversal solutions in TElemedicine

Deployment for European HEALTH care (Grant Agreement No 325215)

Document D2.8

Final Conference

Version 1.0 Work Package: WP2

Version & Date: v1.0 / 2nd

February 2016

Deliverable type: Report

Distribution Status: Public

Author: Marc Lange, Diane Whitehouse

Reviewed by: John Oates

Approved by: Donna Henderson

Filename: D2.8 v1.0 United4Health Final Conference

Abstract

This presents the results of the U4H Final Conference held in two parts, with a policy-

oriented workshop organised with STOA on 1st December 2015 in the European Parliament,

and an outcome and lessons learned oriented conference held on 19th-20th January 2016 in

Brussels.

Key Word List

Final conference, Dissemination, Deployment, Lessons Learned, Technology, Procurement,

Change management, Clinical Engagement, Stakeholders, Connectivity, Patient focus,

Market, twitter, audience.

D2.8 Final Conference

Public of 32 v1.0 / 2nd February 2016

Executive Summary

The final conference of United4Health has been organised jointly with the EHTEL

yearly symposium its programme has been developed as a coordinated one,

combining the achievements, results, lessons learned of the United4Health project

with topics with a broader scope such as eHealth infrastructure, the challenge of

scaling up digital innovation and the Internet of Things for healthcare.

This final conference also included a session organised jointly with STOA, the unit

“Science and Technology Options Assessment” of the Directorate-General for

Parliamentary Research Services of the European Parliament as a means to put the

policy messages of United4Health under the spotlight. However, while this session

was planned to be embedded in the final conference, security threats in Brussels

have obliged us to disconnect this session from the final conference.

The objective of the final conference was to support the project by promoting its key

messages and results about (1) how to deploy telehealth in real life and what impact

can be expected and (2) what role can telehealth play in re-designing healthcare

delivery processes.

Thanks to the inclusion of a policy-related session in the conference, another

objective was targeted: to motivate the civil society – in U4H context,

representatives of clinicians, patients and citizens, and payers/insurers – working at

a European level to provide a platform to engage more clinicians in eHealth.

In terms of achievements, the final conference can be considered as successful:

In quantitative terms: the consolidated registration lists (including both the

STOA workshop and symposium) reaches a total of 276 registered persons

(without duplicates) out of which 69% (191) were external to the U4H

consortium. 26 countries were represented. This is above what was in target1

In qualitative terms, the content of the programme and the different sessions,

received a very positive feedback from the audience (informally) and via

twitter, with a slight reservation on the programme of the STOA conference

since a representative of ESC invited the session “to be more concrete”.

Qualitatively again, the profile of the actual audience was quite close to the

targeted one, with a high representation of healthcare authorities and delivery

organisations, as well as a high representation of health professionals and

their associations. The representation of the industry was satisfactory. The

patients and citizens’ audience has however been under-represented.

The two parts of the final conference have been subject to two distinct reports

aiming at summarising the messages delivered by each speakers and synthesising

what could be retained from the discussions between the speakers and the

audience. These reports and all presentations made during the two events will be

published on the event web site (more details on where to find them in annex).

1 Extract from the grant agreement: “The Midterm Workshop and the Final Conference where 50-60

and 80-100 stakeholder representatives respectively will be invited for a face-to-face presentation

of the project progress and results to promote the adoption of the United4Health business model

and service by other European regions;”



Change History

Version History:

0.1 16th December 2015

0.2 29th January 2016

0.3 31st January 2016

1.0 2nd February 2016

Version Changes

0.1 Initial version

0.2 Second version, enhanced with the report of the 19th-20th January 2016 activities

0.3 Review comments from editorial team

1.0 Version for issue

Outstanding Issues

None



Table of Contents

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 2

CHANGE HISTORY 3

TABLE OF CONTENTS 4

TABLE OF FIGURES 5

1. INTRODUCTION 6

1.1 Purpose of this document 6

1.2 Glossary 6

2. CONTEXT AND CONTENT 7

2.1 Strategy 7

2.2 Preparation phase 8 2.2.1 Focus/theme 8 2.2.2 Process 9 2.2.3 Financing 9 2.2.4 Format 10

2.3 Launch of the communication campaign 10 2.3.1 Announcement 10 2.3.2 Registration 11 2.3.3 Rescheduling of conference 12

2.4 Programme 13

3. STOA WORKSHOP DETAILS 16

3.1 Practicalities 16

3.2 Audience 16 3.2.1 Registrations and attendance 16 3.2.2 Audience profile and target achievement 16 3.2.3 Objective of the workshop 17

3.3 Summary of discussions 18 3.3.1 Further details 19

3.4 Impact via social networks 19

4. JOINT SYMPOSIUM DETAILS 21

4.1 Practicalities 21

4.2 Audience 21 4.2.1 Registrations and attendance 21 4.2.2 Audience profile and target achievement 22

4.3 Summary of discussions 23 4.3.1 Further details 26

4.4 Impact via social networks 26



APPENDIX A: PROGRAMME OF THE STOA WORKSHOP 28

APPENDIX B: PROGRAMME OF THE JOINT SYMPOSIUM 30

ANNEX 1: REPORT ON STOA WORKSHOP

ANNEX 2: REPORT ON FINAL CONFERENCE

Table of Figures Figure 1: Announcement of the conference 10

Figure 2: Invitation to register (initial version) 11

Figure 3: Registrations on a daily basis (23rd September 2015 to 17th January

2016) 11

Figure 4: Accumulated registration (from 23rd September to 17th January) 12

Figure 5: Programme summary of the conference (initial version) 13

Figure 6: Announcement of the STOA workshop 14

Figure 7: Programme summary of the conference (revised version) 15

Figure 8: View of the meeting room during the workshop 16

Figure 9: Statistics on Twitter activities during the STOA workshop 20

Figure 10: Country of origin of the organisations represented 21

Figure 11: View of the meeting room during the symposium 22

Figure 12: Panellists speaking on transforming the patient experience in Europe 23

Figure 13: Panellists speaking on scaling up digital health innovations 24

Figure 14: There was plenty of information circulating at the event 24

Figure 15: More audience members contribute to the discussions 25

Figure 16: Activity tracking report on #digitalhealthcaresymposium

(www.keyhole.co) 26



1. Introduction

1.1 Purpose of this document

This deliverable serves to document the execution of the United4Health (U4H) Final

Conference as per D2.8. The document outlines the framework, content and

outcome of the event.

1.2 Glossary

EHTEL European Health Telematics Association

IAT Industry Advisory Team

ICT Information and Communication Technology

IoT Internet of Things

STOA The Unit “Science and Technology Options Assessment” of the

Directorate-General for Parliamentary Research Services

U4H United4Health

UPAB User Policy Advisory Board



2. Context and Content

2.1 Strategy

The Final Conference was a commitment in the Grant Agreement.

The Consolidated Dissemination Plan (D2.5) set the priorities, direction and tools for

communication of U4H. Based on the target audience and activities identified in

D2.5, the Final Conference was organised based on the following priorities:

Table 1: Final conference priorities (from Dissemination Plan)

Approach Conference priority

Objectives - To support the project by promoting its key messages and

results about:

o How to deploy telehealth in real life and what impact

can be expected?

o What role can telehealth play in re-designing

healthcare delivery processes?

- To motivate representatives of clinicians, patients and

citizens, and payers/insurers working at a European level

to provide a platform to engage more clinicians in eHealth.

Target Audience All stakeholders, and in particular:

o National / regional health authorities, payers and

healthcare providers.

o Healthcare professionals and their associations.

o Patients and their associations.

o eHealth industry and their associations.

Dissemination

lines

- Wide dissemination on:

o Lessons learned from service deployment.

o Conclusions emerging from U4H results.

- In collaboration with members of the User Policy Advisory

Board (UPAB) and Industry Advisory Team (IAT).

Activity Level International.

Activity/tools Co-located with an existing EU Conference to maximise

impact.

As an “EU Conference” was chosen as the preferred co-location for the Final

Conference, a list of the main international conferences linked to eHealth (D2.5,

section 4.3.1) was scrutinised for appropriateness as well as timing.

The EHTEL symposium was chosen as the most suitable location for the U4H Final

Conference for the following reasons:

i. A multi-stakeholder expert audience with a holistic approach of eHealth,

enabling to position tele-monitoring in a broader context with a focus on the

necessary transformation of the health and social care systems in Europe with

ICT and combining topics such as innovative services for healthcare, eHealth

services and infrastructure.



ii. The capability to engage with a European policy-related audience,

demonstrated in particular by the fact that two earlier EHTEL events have

been organised in the European Parliament (2005 and 2011).

iii. The capability to also engage most of the Brussels-based NGOs representing

the most relevant stakeholder groups for eHealth such as the patients, health

professionals, payers and the IT industry, as demonstrated by the stable

audience the symposium has gained and maintained since 2009.

iv. An expert audience was considered as more appropriate than the general

public to receive and forward the key messages of U4H because of the

expected content of the final conference, focusing on:

- how to deploy telehealth in real life; and

- the role telehealth can play in re-designing healthcare delivery processes.

v. Engaging a health professional audience with key messages on the clinical

outcome of the deployed telehealth services was an objective assigned to

other dissemination activities.

2.2 Preparation phase

2.2.1 Focus/theme

Instead of presenting the final conference of U4H as a satellite event, or a session

inside another event, it was decided to offer the audience a coordinated programme

to increase its attractiveness and impact.

The U4H part of the programme

U4H in its Consolidated Dissemination Plan (D2.5) identified three phases of its

communication. Over the life-cycle of the project, it appears that the lessons learned

from the deployment of telehealth services in real life were becoming of critical

importance; hence the final conference has been used not only as a milestone for

Phase 3 (Conclusions emerging from U4H results), but also as an extension of

Phase 2 (Lessons Learned from service deployment). The latter because it became

clear over the final part of the project that it would deliver a very rich and new set of

lessons learned from service deployment in real life, which would remain beyond the

end of the project.

The following U4H themes were identified to develop the symposium programme:

1. New care pathways redesigned to take advantage of telehealth.

2. Lessons learned in deploying telehealth in routine care and real life and a set

of policy recommendations to support this deployment.

3. The challenge of assessing the impact of telehealth services deployed in

routine care and real life and the first results of this impact assessment.

The EHTEL part of the programme

While redesigning healthcare delivery processes with telehealth is of critical

importance to transform healthcare systems in Europe, it was clear that this

needs to be put in context, i.e. that it should be connected to a number of other

eHealth-related – and non-U4H-specific – activities. Among them, EHTEL



selected the following themes to complement the U4H inputs to the joint

symposium:

1. EHR and eHealth interoperable infrastructure.

2. Managing the transition from small to large-scale deployment.

3. Healthcare and the Internet of Things.

2.2.2 Process

To present a comprehensive programme, communication strategy and registration

process, three different groups of actors had to be coordinated, each of them with

their own business model and instruments:

The U4H consortium, represented by members from WP1, WP2 and WP4,

with the objective to organise the final conference of the U4H project, along

the lines of the Grant Agreement.

STOA, in collaboration with U4H members from WP1 and WP2, with the

objective to organise a STOA workshop on eHealth. This part of the event

was organised with resources from both STOA and U4H.

EHTEL, with the objective to organise the 7th edition of the EHTEL annual

symposium. This part of the event was organised solely with the EHTEL's own

resources, including revenues from the EHTELconnect educational

sponsorship.

The title “Joint Digital Healthcare Symposium” reflects this organisational principle.

2.2.3 Financing

Because of the integration of the two elements, the financing structure of this joint

event has required special attention to ensure appropriate and transparent financial

governance:

The annual symposium of EHTEL has always been a self-funded event, with

revenues collected from attendance fees and educational sponsorship

covering most of the related costs.

However, because of the financing mechanisms of U4H, no revenues could

be collected from the U4H part of the event.

In order to deal with this situation, the following financial principles were adopted:

No fees for attending the joint symposium were claimed; however, to reduce

the inherent risk of non-attendance at a free event, a financial contribution was

requested to cover the catering costs for those who registered for the lunch

and the dinner.

Educational sponsorship was limited to the EHTEL part of the joint

symposium.

The costs of organising the joint event were distributed in such a way that the

cost shares are proportionate to the time allocated to each element of the

event.



2.2.4 Format

Due to the expected size of the audience – more than 150 delegates were

anticipated – it was decided to adopt a classic format for the event, combining

lectures with Q&A, in plenary and breakout sessions, with panel discussions and a

digital poster session.

2.3 Launch of the communication campaign

2.3.1 Announcement

The “Save the date” message

was sent in early July 2015, and

subsequently again at the end of

August, to the whole consortium,

the EHTEL network, the

European Innovation Partnership

on Active and Health Ageing (EIP

on AHA) network and newsletter

editors, such as the eHealth Unit

of the European Commission.

Announcing the theme of the

event, whilst taking advantage of

the high profile session hosted by

Eva Kaili, MEP, and co-organised

with STOA, this message

provided its recipients with details

about the target audience of the

event and good reasons to

attend.

This announcement and

subsequent versions of the

programme were also posted on

the U4H and EHTEL web sites.

Figure 1: Announcement of the conference



2.3.2 Registration

The registration web site was

opened in early September.

This invitation to register was

sent repeatedly to the U4H

Consortium and the EHTEL

Network, whose members in turn

forwarded it to their own wider

networks, as well as some

newsletter editors.

The statistics in Figure 3 below

clearly demonstrate the impact of

the different email campaigns,

with a first peak quickly after the

first broadcast, and then a

second peak, significantly higher,

one month before the event as

initially planned.

The targeted registration was

initially set at 150 persons,

because of capacity limitations.

The maximum number of people

that were allowed to join the

STOA workshop was set at 90,

for security reasons. A triage

mechanism was therefore put in

place in order retain control over

how this maximum capacity would be filled in, allowing as many people as possible

from outside the Consortium to join the session. The plan was to offer the remaining

attendees the possibility to watch the STOA workshop via webstreaming to the main

conference venue.

Figure 3: Registrations on a daily basis

(23rd September 2015 to 17th January 2016)

Figure 2: Invitation to register (initial

version)



As shown in Figure 4, during the first week of November 2015, three weeks before

the event, it became clear that the target of 150 would be reached. It was therefore

decided to increase the limit to 180 persons, expecting that up to 15% of

participants might not show up, and that a certain percentage of participants would

only attend one of the two days of the event.

Figure 4: Accumulated registration (from 23rd September to 17th January)

In parallel, emails were sent to the participants to invite them to inform the

organisers if they had to cancel their participation in order to re-allocate their seat to

someone else. A waiting list was thus activated.

2.3.3 Rescheduling of conference

Unfortunately, one week before the event, it became clear that the security alert set

at level 4 in Brussels during the weekend of 21st November was putting the success

of the event at risk because several governments / organisations placed restrictions

on their staff travelling to the Brussels area at this time.

Under these circumstances, the Management Team of the U4H Consortium

decided to postpone the joint event to 19th-20th January 2016. This decision did not,

however, apply to the STOA workshop as the organisers of that workshop decided

to maintain the session as planned.

From a registration point of view, it was decided to separate the registration process

for the STOA workshop from the registration process of the joint symposium:

All registrations for the symposium on 1st-2nd December were transferred to

19th-20th January. Those participants who could not participate because of the

change in dates were invited to cancel their registration to allow newcomers to

register.

All those who registered for the STOA workshop were invited to re-register on

the STOA registration web site dedicated to the workshop.

This workshop was subject to a short but intensive communication campaign

to compensate for the inevitable loss of participants due to the separation of

the two events. The end result of 100 people registered for the STOA

workshop can be considered as a highly satisfactory outcome.



2.4 Programme

Figure 5: Programme summary of the conference (initial version)



Figure 6: Announcement of the STOA workshop



Figure 7: Programme summary of the conference (revised version)

A detailed version of the programme of both events can be found in Appendix A and

Appendix B.



3. STOA Workshop Details

3.1 Practicalities

Date: 1st December 2015 from 14:30 to 17:30 CET

Location: European Parliament, Room PHS A5E-2

Chair: Eva Kaili, MEP and First STOA Vice- Chair

Moderator: John Bowis, former UK Health Minister and MEP

3.2 Audience

3.2.1 Registrations and attendance

100 people had signed up for the Workshop in advance of the day, of which

approximately 75% were external, i.e. non-U4H members and non-User Policy

Advisory Board (UPAB) members.

Figure 8: View of the meeting room during the workshop

3.2.2 Audience profile and target achievement

D2.5 U4H Consolidated Dissemination Plan identified six target audiences that U4H

should make specific efforts to reach in its communication and dissemination

activities.



From the attendees, it is apparent that the STOA Workshop, to some extent,

reached an audience representing national and regional health authorities, payers and healthcare providers and the industry.

Table 2: STOA attendees

Target Audiences Level of

achievement

Description

National / regional health

authorities, payers and

healthcare providers,

including regions and

countries with weak

uptake of telehealth.

High There was high attendance of

representatives from regions and

countries (about 30% of the

audience).

Healthcare professionals

and their associations.

High There was reasonably high

representation of healthcare

professionals and their associations

(about 20%), to which one can

possibly add some of the 10% of

participants coming from universities

and research centres.

Patients and their

associations, general

public including citizens,

consumers and their

associations

Low There was no apparent representation

of patients / citizens and their

associations

eHealth industry and their

associations.

High There was good and active

representation from industry and

consulting organisations, active in

European public affairs (about 25%).

Other EU and non-EU

initiatives.

Low Not clear about attendees linked to

other EU or non-EU projects, but

official representation was not evident.

The STOA policy on privacy means that details of registrations, attendance,

organisational affiliation and country cannot to be disclosed.

3.2.3 Objective of the workshop

The content of the STOA workshop was the result of a compromise between:

STOA seeking to collect information on the state of affairs of eHealth in

Europe.

U4H seeking to present its request for more policy engagement to a policy-

oriented audience, as outlined in the U4H Policy Briefing paper produced by

the project’s UPAB which was presented at the event.



3.3 Summary of discussions

The session introduced the U4H project to a wider audience and shared its policy

messages with European institutions and national and regional policy makers to get

their feedback.

Five core clinically-related messages emerging from the United4Health project were

presented:

Health systems across Europe face significant challenges.

Telehealth is at least as safe and effective as usual care.

Telehealth can improve self-management and support health coaching.

Even when the clinical results are neutral, three other factors need to be taken

into account since they affect deployment:

- The evolution of the technology,

- The urgent needs for changes in healthcare provision,

- The challenges to the sustainability of the healthcare systems and

organisations.

ICT-supported care pathways can act as a “life-jacket” for patients;

collaboration on the part of all stakeholders is needed in their development,

and they take time to formulate.

The United4Health project findings include the policy need to:

Secure a policy environment that promotes and supports telehealth use as a

core component of routine service delivery.

Set out a national consistency of approach together with the ability for local

adaptation.

Empower people and healthcare professionals to take full advantage of

telehealth through promotion, training, skills development and education.

Among the main opinions expressed by attendees at the event, particularly where

they perceive gaps in policies that still need to be filled, are the following:

Experience with scaling-up eHealth in Europe

o Resolve the substantial systemic differences among European countries,

e.g. with regard to payment systems for services.

o Ensure that clinicians are reimbursed if they offer services via

telemedicine.

o Encourage institutions, such as the European Commission, to require

interoperability among eHealth systems and services, provision of

personalised services, and cheaper technological solutions.

o Coordinate the various existing action plans and maps around health /

eHealth issues, including e.g. in research areas such as neuroscience.

o Fund patient advocacy, and examine whether there are particular

challenges when telemedicine is used by specific types of patients (e.g.

cancer patients).

o Handle the challenges of digital literacy of particular (groups of)

individuals, e.g. technophobes and older adults.

eHealth in Europe and the role of European Union policy



o Focus on the regional deployment of eHealth.

o Encourage the use of common indicators and measurements, especially

indicators that can support national and regional policy-makers who want

to deploy eHealth.

o Ensure the transfer of research project results and benefits out into the

public arena.

o Focus on making big data available from large public organisations like

Focus on making big data available from large public organisations such

as the European Commission, the World Health Organisation, and the

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

o Explore the possibilities for both the private sector and public sector to

come together around eHealth / health.

o Concentrate on well-being and health, not just sickness.

o Focus on the messages of: My body, my data.”

Globally, the feedback collected from participants was positive, with one slight

reservation since one attendee invited the session “to be more concrete”.

3.3.1 Further details

A Workshop report summarising the key messages of the speakers, as well as what

could be retained from the discussions between the speakers and audience are

attached as Annex 1.

The presentations slides from the STOA Workshop can be viewed on the workshop

website: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/stoa/cms/home/events/workshops/ehealth

The STOA session has been podcasted and is available at:

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-room/20151126IPR04946/Science-

and-technology-options-assessment-meeting-01122015

3.4 Impact via social networks

Twitter and the hashtag #eHealthSTOA is the social network that has been used by

STOA and U4H to increase the impact of the STOA workshop.

251 tweets have used this hashtag, 92% of them during the event and the potential

reach of up to 560,0002.

The top tweet of the workshop earned 1,892 impressions3; its author was Mrs Eva

Kaili, MEP:

“I have made many friends on Twitter today – let’s continue the dialogue”

#ehealthSTOA”.

2 Potential reach is defined by the number of unique users that could potentially see (if they were

logged-in) any of the #eHealthSTOA tweets until and including the day of the workshop. This

figure has been provided by STOA. 3 “impression", means that a tweet has been delivered to the Twitter stream of a particular account.

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/stoa/cms/home/events/workshops/ehealth

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-room/20151126IPR04946/Science-and-technology-options-assessment-meeting-01122015

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-room/20151126IPR04946/Science-and-technology-options-assessment-meeting-01122015



Figure 9: Statistics on Twitter activities during the STOA workshop

Comparing this indicator to other events organised by STOA, the Consortium has

been informed that the eHealth workshop ranks slightly above average, both in

terms of potential reach, and in the total number of tweets; eHealth is likely to be

one of the topics where the Twitter community is mobilised. STOA has also

observed that this was one of the most versatile events regarding the amount of

different Twitter accounts covering the event.



4. Joint Symposium Details

4.1 Practicalities

Date: 19th January 2016 09:30 to 20th January 14:00.

Location: Stanhope Hotel, Brussels.

The U4H final conference was held jointly with the EHTEL Symposium.

4.2 Audience

4.2.1 Registrations and attendance

Because of a fear that there might be an increase in the level of “no shows”, the

upper limit for participation was increased beyond 185. The change of date from

early December to end January could have both enabled and prevented

participants to attend the conference; while those willing to attend would inevitably

register, it was obvious that not all those who might be prevented from attending

would inform the organisers about their cancellation.

208 people had signed up for the Joint Symposium in advance of the first day, of

which approximately 60% were external, i.e. non-U4H members and non-UPAB

members. These participants represented 146 different organisations from 26

different countries.

Figure 10: Country of origin of the organisations represented



The “no-show” prediction turned out to be correct, as the actual participation was

145 persons, i.e. 30% of no-shows; this corresponded to the capacity of the room

for the plenary sessions.

Out of these 145 actual participants, the ratio of participants external to the U4H

consortium did not significantly change, i.e. 52% of the actual total number

participants v. 60% of the people who registered.

Figure 11: View of the meeting room during the symposium

4.2.2 Audience profile and target achievement

The profile of the audience of the final conference did not significantly differ from the

STOA workshop. The audience represented national and regional health authorities,

payers, healthcare providers / health professionals, and the industry, to some

extent.

Table 3: Final conference attendees


achievement

Description

National / regional health

authorities, payers and

healthcare providers,

including regions and

countries with weak uptake

of telehealth.

High There was high attendance of

representation from regions and

countries: about 35% of the

audience represented health

authorities, and 10% more

represented providers and insurers.

Healthcare professionals

and their associations.

High There was reasonably high

representation of healthcare

professionals and their associations

(about 18%).




achievement

Description

Patients and their

associations; general public

including citizens,

consumers and their

associations.

Low There was a small representation of

patients / citizens and their

associations.

eHealth industry and their

associations.

Medium There was good and active

representation from industry and

consulting organisations, active in

European public affairs (about 20%).

Other EU and non-EU

initiatives.

Low Not clear about attendees linked to

other EU or non-EU projects, but

official representation was not

evident.

The privacy issues mean that details of registrations, attendance, organisational

affiliation and country cannot to be disclosed.

4.3 Summary of discussions

The conference’s main messages were that:

United4Health has been about “Keeping the patient safer, healthier and more

empowered”.

“Telehealth is here. It is happening!”

The two days offered plenty of opportunity for higher level and policy messages to

be presented. Yet the days were also full of real-life experiences shared by

numerous deployment sites. At least nine U4H sites presented their practical

experiences on subjects as diverse as stakeholder engagement, patient

acceptance, organisational transformation, workforce adoption, health / information

technology infrastructure, and electronic health records.

The conference included five plenary sessions and two breakout sessions of three

streams each.

Figure 12: Panellists speaking on transforming the patient experience in

Europe



The United4Health related plenary sessions focused on topics such as:

Transforming the patient experience in Europe.

Upscaling telehealth – the need for policy engagement.

Lessons learned on accelerating healthcare transformation at scale.

Figure 13: Panellists speaking on scaling up digital health innovations

Wider subject matter that plenary sessions covered included:

Infrastructures as an enabler.

Scaling up digital health innovations.

Healthcare anywhere and the Internet of Everything.

Throughout the conference, there was not only plenty of conversation, dialogue and

networking, but documentation too.

Figure 14: There was plenty of information circulating at the event

Major and repeated messages during the two days included:

Telehealth should not be seen as an add-on or complementary to ordinary

healthcare, but as genuinely part of routine care.



Telehealth is only a tool. What is being changed is empowerment!

Technologies are changing very fast. So the technology should be kept

simple. It is also worthwhile watching the technologies of the future4.

Figure 15: More audience members contribute to the discussions

Several of these issues emerged also in the close to 40 Twitter messages that were

sent or re-tweeted during the two conference days5. Here is a sample of the short

Twitter messages sent by conference attendees (that draw attention to some of the

conference highlights):

“There’s clear evidence that telehealth can reduce hospitalisation for chronic

patients.” Mr John Crawford, IBM.

“Telehealth enables improved self-management and care.” Dr Simona Abbro,

UPMC, Italy.

“It’s the care pathway that is crucial.” Dr Sandeep Thekkepat, NHS

Lanarkshire, Scotland.

“The key message for success in patient / stakeholder engagement -

communicate, communicate!” Ms Kathleen Maguire, Scotland.

“Only recently has healthcare ICT focused on benefiting the individual and not

the organisation.” Prof. George Crooks, NHS24, Scotland.

And last, but certainly not least:

“There’s no eHealth without eID.” Dr Andreas Grode, gematik, Germany.

Overall, the main message emerging from this intensive, communicative U4H final

conference is well summed up in Prof. George Crooks, U4H Project Co-ordinator’s

own closing words:

“Evidence has shown that successful transformational change on a large

scale requires not only bottom up willingness to change, but also top down

policy support.”

4 For example, the King’s Fund in the United Kingdom has recently explored eight technologies,

including smart phones, that are likely to change the future of healthcare:

http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/articles/eight-technologies-will-change-health-and-care,

last accessed 27th January 2016.

5 #digitalhealthcaresymposium and https://twitter.com/u4h_ec, last accessed 27

th January 2016.

http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/articles/eight-technologies-will-change-health-and-care

https://twitter.com/u4h_ec



Involving not only health authorities and their policy makers, but also many local,

grassroots ‘doers’, the U4H consortium and its project sites have every intention to

continue this two-way journey into a new health and care future.

4.3.1 Further details

A report on the final conference summarising the key messages of the speakers, as

well as what was retained from the discussions between the speakers and

audience, is attached as Annex 2.

The project brochure available at eh conference can be found at

http://united4health.eu/resources/service-model-brochure/

The presentations from the Final Conference can be viewed on the website:

http://www.ehtel.eu/references-files/jointdigitalhealthcaresymposium.

4.4 Impact via social networks

Twitter and the hashtag #digitalhealthcaresymposium is the social network that has

been used by EHTEL and U4H to increase the impact of the symposium.

70 tweets have used this hashtag. They may have been read by 43,500 individual

users (potential reach, i.e. if they were logged in). These numbers have, however,

been negatively influenced by the fact that Twitter was down during most of the

morning of the 19th January.

Figure 16: Activity tracking report on #digitalhealthcaresymposium

(www.keyhole.co)

The tweet that has been retweeted the most (52) has been the one of the eHealth

Unit of DG Connect (see under “Top Posts” in the figure above).

The top tweet of the symposium which earned 1,458 impressions6 was

“Overwhelming position in @U4H_EC: Patients saw telemonitoring as positive

#DigitalHealthcareSymposium @ehtel_ehealth”

6 “impression", means that a tweet has been delivered to the Twitter stream of a particular account.

http://united4health.eu/resources/service-model-brochure/



It was obvious that U4H, even with the support of EHTEL, with its 450 followers

(cumulative figures) being rather new on the Twittersphere, could not compete

against STOA’s figures and their 10K followers.



Appendix A: Programme of the STOA workshop



Appendix B: Programme of the Joint Symposium

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