Thread by @eaHealthEU

🔴LIVE NOW | Technological advances in #healthcare - The key to fighting health inequalities?

Tune in for an hybrid debate to discuss the role of research and innovation in the healthcare sector.

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“Healthcare is today now the largest segment of the Fujifilm Business” says Andy Ross of @FujifilmEMEA, kicking off the discussion.

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“We’ve dedicated unequal measures to manufacturing the medicines and vaccines of tomorrow while also bringing forward medical technologies that deliver faster & more accurate diagnosis for patients”, he adds.

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“In the unit for health ecosystem and innovations we do a lot of related work”, starts Christine Kriza from @EUScienceInnov.

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“My work is mostly related to providing policy support to the Innovative Health Initiative, previously the Innovative Medicines Initiative, which is a large public/private partnership in the area of pre-competitive health research that is also very cross-sectoral”.

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“I would like to emphasize that I am also the co-rapporteur for the European Health Data Space regulation, which is currently one of the most important health files that we are dealing with in the European Parliament” remarks MEP @TomislavSokol.

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“I was also the rapporteur on a report in the committee of regional development on how to use European fundings to take over health inequalities”, he adds.

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“There are 2 distinct features of the AHEAD project that are relevant for this discussion. First we have developed a medical desert diagnostic tool, that visualises data on health workers & health densities services on interactive maps” says @CorinneHinlopen of @Wemos

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“Second, we have applied a participatory policy making approach to mitigating the situation in medial desert, regions or populations in five countries”, she reminds.

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“Technological advances in healthcare - The key to fighting health inequalities? Perhaps you see it coming, but the answer is actually “no”. I don’t think that healthcare technologies are the key to fighting health inequalities”, points out @RaymondGemen of @EPHA_EU.

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“For health technology to truly tackle health inequality, first they need to be designed, with that very objective in mind.Second, they really need to consider those underlying determinants of health and certainly they need to be developed with the people”, he states.

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“Until we define why we are chasing these things, what are the problems we are chasing and the opportunities (...) I don’t think that we can make progress”, points out Dr. Alistair Fraser of @RCSEd.

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“We are looking to create community standards and actually create this new profession that has an incredibly broad spread of knowledge, and use technology to support that and deliver better outcomes for people”, he adds.

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“I don’t think there is a systematic shift in healthcare culture that has happened yet. Yet I think there is a recognition of it” states Dr. Alistair Fraser of @RCSEd

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“When we speak about what the EU can do, the EU has limited possibilities to act, because we do not have enough money, budget, to redistribute that money in a way that we have the same standards all over the EU” remarks MEP @TomislavSokol

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“Understanding the structural drivers of inequities is a very important part here, understanding the social determinants of health, the barriers of access & also dealing with innovative solutions on how we can address them” states Christine Kriza from @EUScienceInnov.

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“Tackling medical deserts is also about giving shape to the European project. While we acknowledge that the organisation of the health system is the Member states competence,(...) it should be an European concern” says @CorinneHinlopen of @Wemos

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“When you look at the 2023 EU4Health programme, out of the almost 736 millions euros, only 2.5 millions is marked specifically for addressing cancer inequalities -which is too little-” says @RaymondGemen of @EPHA_EU

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He adds that: "On one hand we hear that health is not a member state competence, however there is the EU4heatlh programme, and at the same time there are other EU instruments that can be addressed and have a very huge impact on people’s health”

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And that’s a wrap! Thanks for joining the debate and following the conversation.

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