Sunday, July 10, 2016

eHealth Forum: Catalyst for Reform – Enabler for Growth


The eHealth Forum will be held in Athens, Greece on the 25th and 26th of October, 2016 at the Megaron Athens International Conference Centre.

The eHealth Forum becomes the annual meeting point for Greece, the South East Mediterranean and the Middle East, to reach and network with key stakeholders. The eHealth Forum invites policy makers, industry leaders, medical professionals, health care providers, tech innovators, researchers, investors, pharma, telecommunications companies, patient advocacy groups and major health IT players to connect and pursue the role of ehealth as a catalyst of reform and enabler of economic growth.

The rapidly growing eHealth sector estimated to dominate all areas of industry by 2020 presents a unique opportunity for collaboration, financial and scientific growth and social reform. Within this expanding market further developing information technologies and applications in digital health is essential to promote the reform of the healthcare system and therefore act as a catalyst for these imperative changes. The process of reforming healthcare is, in and of itself, an enabler for economic growth in various sectors: research, industry, information and telecommunications technologies. The eHealth Forum presents “hot” topics high on the “digital agenda” in Europe and the surrounding region, while providing the channel to present and disseminate information on scientific and technological advancements in healthcare.

Themes 
1. eHealth Framework
2. eHealth in practice today
3. Clinical management of chronic illness
4. Patient at the centre: Health Applications
5. Data-aware medical devices
6. Big Data
7. Cyber-security
8. Behavioural Change


Source

http://www.ehealthforum.org/

Saturday, July 09, 2016

IHE Pharmacy Educational Webinar 2016

IHE (Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise) annually presents a series of free educational webinars from June through September.
The series will help your organization learn about IHE; engage in IHE development and testing activities; and, leverage IHE solutions to develop and implement interoperable health IT systems.

Pharmacy webinar Learning Objectives:
  • Understand PHARM vision, mission and strategic goals.
  • Understand PHARM domain’s liaison and collaboration with HL7 and ISO.
  • Overview of existing PHARM profiles and Community and Hospital Pharmacy, including Community Medication Prescription and Dispense, Hospital Medication Workflow, Medication Treatment Plan
  • Overview of other PHARM domain activities, including Supply Chain and FHIR
  • Understand how PHARM work benefits the pharmacists.
  • How to get involved in PHARM committee work.
Download:

Tuesday, March 08, 2016

IHE (Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise) World Summit 2016


The IHE World Summit will be held in parallel to eHealth Week on 7 and 8 June 2016 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands
IHE brings together healthcare IT system users and developers to address interoperability issues that impact clinical care. The work involves identifying real-world scenarios/use cases, writing and reviewing specifications, implementing in products, monitoring vendor testing, etc. We invite you to become involved in one or more of these activities.

IHE (Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise) is an initiative by healthcare professionals and industry to improve the way computer systems in healthcare share information. 
IHE promotes the coordinated use of established standards such as DICOM and HL7 to address specific clinical needs in support of optimal patient care. 
Systems developed in accordance with IHE communicate with one another better, are easier to implement, and enable care providers to use information more effectively.

Source

IHE World Summit 2016

Thursday, February 11, 2016

European Commission publishes the final text for the Falsified Medicines Directive Delegated Regulation


The European Commission has published the long-awaited Delegated Regulation, setting out the requirements for the future system of medicines verification that must operate in all EU countries.

http://ec.europa.eu/health/files/eudralex/vol-1/reg_2016_161/reg_2016_161_en.pdf

COMMISSION DELEGATED REGULATION (EU) 2016/161 
of 2 October 2015 
supplementing Directive 2001/83/EC 
of the European Parliament and of the Council 
by laying down detailed rules for the safety features appearing on thpackaging of medicinal products for human use. 

This Regulation lays down: 
 (a) the characteristics and technical specifications of the unique identifier that enables the authenticity of medicinal products to be verified and individual packs to be identified;
(b) the modalities for the verification of the safety features;
(c) the provisions on the establishment, management and accessibility of the repositories system where the information on the safety features shall be contained;
(d) the list of medicinal products and product categories subject to prescription which shall not bear the safety features;
(e) the list of medicinal products and product categories not subject to prescription which shall bear the safety features;
(f) the procedures for the notification to the Commission by national competent authorities of non-prescription medicinal products judged at risk of falsification and prescription medicinal products not deemed at risk of falsification in accordance with the criteria set out in Article 54a(2)(b) of Directive 2001/83/EC;
(g) the procedures for a rapid evaluation of and decision on the notifications referred to in point (f) of this Article. L 32/6 EN Official Journal of the European Union 9.2.2016


Tuesday, February 09, 2016

The European Medicines Verification Organisation (EMVO) signs framework agreements with service providers to establish blueprint systems


The European Medicines Verification Organisation (EMVO) is a Luxembourgish non-profit organisation representing stakeholders united in securing the legal supply chain from falsified medicines
Its founding members are EFPIA, the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations, the EGA, the European Generic and Biosimilar medicines Association, PGEU, the Pharmaceutical Group of the European Union, GIRP, the European Association of Pharmaceutical Full-line Wholesalers and EAEPC, the European Association of Euro-Pharmaceutical Companies.
The stakeholder organisation EMVO last Friday finalised its contract negotiations with 3 partners that will be the preferred providers to implement the repositories system in compliance with the Falsified Medicines Directive. The 3 partners are: Aegate Holdings Limited, Arvato Systems GmbH and Solidsoft Reply.
The repositories system will allow the verification for authentication of medicines in Europe. For this purpose 5 European stakeholder associations (EAEPC, EFPIA, EGA, GIRP and PGEU) have established in February of this year a non-profit organisation EMVO that is taking the lead in the creation of this system.

Thursday, February 04, 2016

OpenMedicine drive towards tangible outcomes – a triple win for Europe


The openMedicine Expert Council met for its 2nd meeting on Jan. 21 to 22, 2016 at the CEN – CENELEC Management Centre in Brussels, Belgium. It was very well attended by more than 30 experts from Europe and the USA. They represented medicinal productsstandardisation, and regulatory bodies, the European Commission, and the core project team.
Based on and guided by first year project results, the experts
  • intensely discussed critical issues and challenges brought forward both by council members and the openMedicine team
  • debated options for standards and their impact on prescriptions, their dispensation at community pharmacies in another country, patient summaries and drug databases
  • contributed suggestions on providing ultimately a set of recommendations for EU member states as well as an implementation roadmap on how to assure the univocal cross border identification of medicines for human use wherever needed.

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

ECHI - European Core Health Indicators


The European Core Health Indicators (ECHI), formerly known as European Community Health Indicators are the result of a long-term cooperation between the EU Member States and the European Commission. Three ECHI projects (1998-2001, 2001-2004, 2005-2008) funded under the EU Health Programmes established the first lists of ECHI indicators, aiming to create a comparable health information and knowledge system to monitor health at EU level.
Under the Second Programme of Community Action in the Field of Health 2008-2013, the EU funded the Joint Action (JA) on European Community Health Indicators Monitoring (ECHIM). The JA ECHIM built on previous achievements and developed more precise definitions of the indicators and continued the implementation of the indicators in the Member States. One of the aims of the ECHIM was to consolidate and expand the ECHI indicator system towards a sustainable health monitoring system in Europe supporting the EU Health Strategypdf. The work was carried out in close collaboration with Member States, the European Commission, Eurostat, WHO, OECD and other international organisations. The JA ended in June 2012 and the main result was a shortlist of 88 health indicatorspdf(248 KB)classified by policy areas.
In May 2013, the Expert Group on Health Information agreed to rename the ECHI to European Core Health Indicators.
Definitions and data collection are in place for nearly 60 out of 88 ECHI indicators. The indicators under development still need further refinement before being accessible in the ECHI data tool. ECHI indicators are grouped below under five main chapters. To access data and metadata, click on the indicator to go to the ECHI data tool. This tool allows presenting selected indicators in different layouts: line chart, bar chart, map or table.

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

The Older Patient: eHealth and mHealth Approach in Today's Context of Demographic Ageing



Background 

The demographic trends projected over the long term reveal that Europe is ‘turning increasingly grey’ in the coming decades. By 2025 more than 20 percent of Europeans will be 65 or over, with a particularly rapid increase in the number of over 80s. This ageing trend will continue, and it is expected that by 2060 more than 30 percent will be 65 or over and the number of over 80s will reach 12 percent of the population. While in most parts of Europe life expectancy at birth continues to increase, the healthy life year expectancy is however not increasing in parallel and is even decreasing in some countries. This means that we can expect a sharp rise in the number of older people who will need support if nothing is done in the near future to empower them to cope with chronic diseases, old age frailty and the limitations on their daily activities that result from their health conditions. The rapid ageing of the population must be reflected in a greater empowerment of older citizens and consumers in all relevant areas and in particular in the whole innovation process of eHealth and mHealth solutions.

Saturday, January 02, 2016

Congresses for Hospital Pharmacists during 2016


Here are our proposals for the Congresses and Scientific Events during the year 2016!


EAHP European Association of Hospital Pharmacists
http://www.eahp.eu/congresses/21st-congress-eahp
21st Congress of the EAHP
16-18 March 2016
Vienna, Austria
Download the programme flyer from HERE
Website: http://www.eahp.eu/congresses/21st-congress-eahp



ESOP European Society for Oncology Pharmacists
http://www.esop.li/futureevents.php
3rd European Conference of Oncology Pharmacy,
19th – 21st May 2016
Dubrovnik, Croatia
Download the programme flyer from HERE
Website: www.ecop2016.eu


FIP International Pharmaceutical Federation
http://www.whpa.org/whpcr2016/
World Health Professions Conference on Regulation 2016
21 May - 22 May 2016
Geneva, Switzerland



ESCP European Society of Clinical Pharmacy
Workshop
http://www.escpweb.org/cms
June 10-11 2016
Spring Workshop in Basel, Switzerland,  



ISPOR International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research
http://www.ispor.org/Events/Index.aspx?eventId=27
ISPOR 19th Annual European Congress
29 October-2 November 2016
Vienna, Austria

Website: http://www.ispor.org/Event/Index/2016Vienna