Monitoring the Polish eHealth beat

When it comes to health, European Countries face very similar challenges, especially in the way of organising and managing the delivery of health services. These challenges vary from a growing number of new medical technologies, a demand for participation coming from empowered patients, shortages on health professionals, health inequalities related to social status, an imminent need for an effective chronic diseases management system and of course the financial crisis adding more pressure to European health systems.

Day by day, more and more European countries discover the potential of eHealth to face these challenges. Each country is exploring this new path adapting the potential of eHealth solutions to their needs and ability to change.

To learn more on the local initiatives on eHealth, we met in Warsaw with Artur Pruszko, Director of the Polish eHealth Forum. The Forum e-Zdrowia is an international event connecting e-health industry leaders, medical professionals and government representatives. It was organized last year, hosting conferences and workshops, addressed to persons responsible for ehealth projects in Poland.

Its vision is to create a space where all the ehealth related stakeholders in Poland are involved in the debate around ehealth, fostering transfer of best practices. To this aim, the Forum e-Zdrowia has partnered with the Polish government and regions, the healthcare professionals, the union of health IT providers, the union of employees in healthcare, the nurses associations, the Business IT representatives and the local start-up community. The Forum e-Zdrowia is also organized in partnership with IHE and HIMSS sharing the best international practices with Polish audience.

The Forum e-Zdrowia recognizes the crucial voice of patients in the design of the national ehealth strategy, advocating that the ultimate evaluation criteria of the healthcare system is how it fulfils prioritised need of patients. Local patient organisations are on board in its activities and play an important role in the debate.

Poland, like Greece, is a country on the edge of Europe, closely linked to the rest of the European economy. Cultural and economic relations between Poland and Greece are excellent with more Greek companies investing in Poland and further support thanks to the Polish community in Greece. There are around 40–50,000 Poles who live in Greece. Furthermore, there is a lot of sympathy for Poles in Greece, and I think it is mutual, given that more than 300,000 Poles visit Greece every year.

When it comes to health and healthcare services, funding is also one of the biggest challenges for both countries; however, just like in Greece, this is also an opportunity for the Polish to be more strategic on health expenditure including eHealth solutions to improve their services. In addition, Poland’s potential in medical tourism is also high, especially when it comes to specialty medicine, namely plastic surgeries, obesity treatment, cardiology, orthopaedics, oncology and ophthalmology.

Having common challenges and many opportunities to discover, the eHealth Forum is inviting Polish stakeholders of Forum e-Zdrowia to participate in the coming DHealth Conference and Exhibition organized this October in Athens, and showcase the local projects and ecosystem to a plethora of international ehealth policy makers, clinicians, patients, IT specialists and the public.

Hope to see you all there!

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