Digitally enabled care in Europe

Other panellists included Ioana Gligor, the Head of Unit for the Commission’s Health department for digital health, and the chair of the European Parliament’s internal market committee, Petra de Sutter, a Belgian Green politician who is also a gynaecologist.

In her intervention, the Confederation's Sarah Collen gave a summary of the Code of Conduct on data driven health and care technologies and the recent NHSx report entitled “AI: Getting it right” 

The general discussion focussed on the overall priorities for Europe over the coming European Commission mandate. The European Green Deal will be a major focus, with the second major focus being the European Digital Single Market. The new Commission has promised to deliver a draft proposal on new legislation to govern AI within its first 100 days.

In terms of health, this Commission has committed to the creation of a European health data space, which can be used by EU citizens to access their electronic health records throughout Europe, but can also be used to enhance the use of data for research purposes.

The value of regulatory ‘sandboxes’ in this field was discussed. Sandbox takes its name from the sandboxes where children play in a controlled environment. In the computer science world, a sandbox is a closed testing environment designed for experimenting safely with web or software projects. The concept is also being used in the digital economy arena to refer to regulatory sandboxes - testing grounds for new business models that are not protected by current regulation, or supervised by regulatory institutions. The purpose of the sandbox is to adapt compliance with strict regulations to the growth and pace of the most innovative companies, in a way that doesn’t smother the Fintech sector with rules, but also doesn’t diminish consumer protection. This model has been tested in the UK by Fintech companies and it could be a way forward for the digital health technology community.