Health 2.0 Europe Paris: Denise's takeaway messages Part 1 #health2eu

Whether you attended the Health 2.0 Europe conference in Paris or not, if you're interested in the movement, whatever the name you use for it, you've been waiting to hear the results of the conference. In this first article, we'll look at  the takeaway messages. What did people learn? Well, this very much depends on what they knew going in. But we'll take a stab at answering nonetheless. Click for the important takeaways that the program could provoke. And come back soon for the next blogpost, where we'll work our way through the agenda. 

                            Takeaway messages

In preface to the following observations, let's say that the participants came out with a good understanding of what Health 2.0 is, ie a second generation of health applications on the Internet,  enabling users to go beyond the static web site and enter the world of true interactivity. While Health 2.0 enables the consumer or patient to better manage his health, it is not just that. It's also about collaboration among professionals, and between professionals and patients.

We knew from the beginning that the cultural and social context would have a massive impact on the shape of Health 2.0 and that Governments are playing a greater role in Europe than the US but the movement is en route, because the status quo with its lack of transparency and lack of efficiency just will not stand up to the forces of change.

The first message is one of DISCOVERY. Most people, I will venture to guess, had not previously been exposed to  European accomplishments in Health 2.0. If European, they would have heard about those  going on in their own country but not much about Health 2.0 in other countries. If non-European, they would have known very little of what was going on in Europe at all. US physician community Sermo's founder, for example, remarked that he did not know of Doctors.Net, which was 8 years old when Sermo was born.

The second  is the VIBRANCY and CREATIVITY of Health 2.0 in Europe. Whatever the category of Health 2.0 services, there were several exciting examples at the conference and others whom we could have featured.  The potential for cross-fertilization among countries is tremendous.

The third is that USAGE NUMBERS were also impressive. European Health 2.0 ventures are not small pilots but often programs with from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of users.

Fourthly,  while GOVERNMENT plays an important role in health care all over Europe, government attitude and policy toward health and the internet is quite different from country to country.

The fifth point is that while there is tremendous diversity if we look at the details, the general trend is going in the SAME DIRECTION, ie towards the use of the internet by healthcare consumers to do things and not just access encyclopedic texts: participate in communities, share data across platforms, get opinions at a distance synchronously and asynchronously.

The corollary to point five is the general SIMILARITY of SERVICES being created in the US and Europe, even if government's role is different on the two continents.

The sixth point are the GLOBAL APPROACHES coming out of Europe. European inventors have been more likely to come up with a service that can either work around the world in English or is offered in multiple languages than their American counterparts who target the US, given its size.

The seventh is that there are still MORE QUESTIONS than answers. Can we find satisfactory answers regarding privacy and confidentiality, access, quality of information and data, business models...

The eighth is nonetheless the JOY that the conference generated. Suddenly, all sorts of new solutions to healthcare problems were being presented, bringing hope that all the pieces of the system could work more harmoniously together to improve healthcare, with the existing resources.

The ninth is the issue of the ECOSYSTEM. How can innovators be better supported financially, especially in Europe?

The tenth is how can we best SPREAD the WORD? How can we ensure that more consumers and professionals are made aware of the internet resources that they can call upon, whether nationally or internationally, creating a virtuous circle for innovators and users.

Comments

[SharingStrength]

Denise,

Thank you for this great summary of the takeaways from the conference. For me, seeing the lens focus on Health 2.0 Europe after watching the action on the US stage helped describe Canada's possible role in the global Health 2.0 movement.

Canada has the opportunity to be petri dish for discovering and implementing multilanguage/multicultural solutions.

Any truly successful eHealth solution in our country must consider the needs of a multicultural society. An onerous task to say the least. But our advantage is that this multicultural society is governed by one government. Sure we will have to negotiate the provincial differences, but we will not have to straddle multiple regulatory rules and policies as Europe does.

Thanks to our long history of bilingulism and multiculturalism, we are familiar with the challenges and benefits of providing information in 2 or more languages and recognizing the importance of cultural sensibilities.

I hope that Canada will be the torch bearer of multilingual/multicultural eHealth solutions that will empower patients of all cultures in our country and to offer lessons-learned to other partnerships delivering solutions in multiple languages. I look forward to being a part of this exciting endeavour.

Colleen

[Eija Hukka]

Thank you Denise for raising up important issues. One of the key obstacles is still the lack of interoperability in the web. The web is a mess. We in Finland are trying to tackle this by developing a national semantic infrastructure. See: https://www.seco.tkk.fi/. The HealthFinland Portal (TerveSuomi)is based on distributed content ceation: http://www.tervesuomi.fi/fi/etusivu