#EAPM - Time to collaborate further: The (real-world) evidence is clear

Welcome to our update on this, the summer solstice. Let’s hope that your working Friday is not the longest ever, writes European Alliance for Personalised Medicine (EAPM) Executive Director Denis Horgan.

But is has been a long week. On Wednesday and Thursday of this week (19 and 20 June) EAPM held two round tables in Brussels, as the Alliance, its members and partners seek to further the ambition of bringing innovation into health-care systems.

The first of these informal meetings took place alongside MEPs in the Parliament’s Members Salon, and the premise was to enable all present - deputies old and new and a cross-section of stakeholders - to gain a better understanding of the issues involved in personalised health care.

The second, more technically minded round table, with member state representatives on Real World Evidence and HTA, took place the day after, and was structured around an initial framework-setter, followed by various case examples from member states.

A vital part of EAPM’s role has always been engagement with EU health attachés, MEPs and the European Commission, as well as continuous involvement in ongoing discussions in our arena.

As well as parliament deputies, attendees across the two meetings included Commission personnel, representatives from the pharmaceutical industry, patient groups, academics, health-care professionals, and Permanent Representation health attachés, among others.

The sharing of health data (including genomic) formed the backbone to both meetings, alongside the need for assured privacy and trust, and the trick is to get the balance right. EAPM has always held this view and part of its remit is to inform other parties of the importance of this two-pronged approach.

In the wake of the meetings, EAPM will run two synergized tracks going forward. The first will be an MEP Working Group that will look to focus on ways of better communicating the potential benefits of genomic sciences to the broader public. These deputies will also engage with pressing dossiers on behalf of our members.

Parliament is the people’s house after all…

The second track will see the formation and dissipation of frameworks of the cooperation necessary between member states (and the regions with them) in order to determine, facilitate and move ahead with key drivers directed towards bringing personalised approaches into the EU’s health-care systems.

One key point to emerge from the meetings was the absolute and urgent need for more-and-better collaboration. Given that member state health ministries don’t all have the same priorities, nor the same visions, Europe needs to help member states design investment policy in healthcare.

Also, health-care systems must be prepared to embrace digital technologies. Hence, Europe has to improve IT skills in medical schools for a start, while making sure that the digital divide doesn’t become a medical divide.

Clearly there is a growing issue regarding how to reconcile the promotion of innovation on one hand while ensuring access on the other. The Commission and Parliament themselves clearly need to work together more in this area.

Of course, EAPM and its stakeholders have always believed all this - and these two tracks offer further construction blocks as we build on what has already been achieved.

As part of its an over-riding strategy, as well as these twin tracks, EAPM will host further meetings in September and November.

Defining ‘access’ - or not

EU leaders have been busy getting together this week too. Apart from spending until the early hours of this morning NOT deciding who will get the top jobs (they’ll officially talk again in a week-or-so, although there’ll be a lot of behind-the-scenes one-on-one discussion before then, as ever), they have, at least, adopted a strategy as we prepare to move into the third decade of this millennium.

Among other things, and important to you, dear reader, is the fact that leaders agreed to work towards “Adequate social protection, inclusive labour markets and the promotion of cohesion…” which “will help Europe preserve its way of life, as will a high level of consumer protection and food standards, and good access to health care”.

There was, as it turns out, no further detail about what ‘good access’ actual means and what the EU leaders plan to do about it. In these times of Brexit, leadership shenanigans and other confusion, perhaps this was a missed opportunity?

Then again, EU summits are a bit like trams and buses - there’ll be another one along in a minute…

eHealth on the rise

A new study, suggests that eHealth adoption in primary healthcare has increased in the EU from 2013 to 2018, although large differences exist between member states - at least the ones in the survey.

During the time period analyzed, the amount of general practitioners enthusiastic about eHealth has doubled with its use routine among the countries with the highest level of adoption. These are, alphabetically, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Spain, Sweden and the UK.

Those countries with the lowest level of adoption (Greece, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Romania and Slovakia) do not have widespread use of eHealth.

Four categories were used in the survey. First up is electronic health record - currently available across all analysed EU countries with nearly all GPs (96%) using it in their practice.

It seems that basic health data and information and order-entry functionalities are almost fully adopted in all countries, and in more than half of the countries most GPs are routinely using clinical decision support functionalities and administrative data routinely.

Next, health informatics exchange adoption is lower than EHR adoption. The degree of exchange of clinical, administrative and management is still not very high across the analyzed countries. On the plus side, this week Croatia began accepting e-prescriptions from Finland.

The survey found that, since 2013, there has been a large increase in the adoption of certifying sick leaves and transferring prescriptions to pharmacists.

Telehealth is showing progress, with the ‘minus’ being that its availability and use are still low in most analysed countries. Training and education functionalities are now available to half of GPs, while they were only available to 36% of those surveyed in 2013.

The survey notes that the availability of consultations with patients (12%) and tele-monitoring (4%) is still low.

The adoption of Personal Health Record (PHR) shows a similar pattern to Telehealth. Availability of the functionalities to request appointments and prescriptions has increased, as have the functionalities allowing patients to view their medical records and test results.

We’ll leave the last word for now on this topic to doctors who claim that e-health has not had a positive impact on relationships between patients and themselves. “Must try harder”?

The ENVI of Parliament

Over in the new Parliament, the week of 2 July will allow us to see which MEPs will end up undertaking which responsibilities. The Alliance, and parts of the media, has its eye on the ENVI committee in particular.

The Environment, Public Health and Food Safety committee has, in fact, already been the subject of a leaked internal document from the European People’s Party’s Romanian delegation, and it turns out that one of EAPM’s stalwarts, Cristian Silviu Bușoi, is keen to renew his membership, as is Adina Vălean, the former ENVI chair.

Watch this space, and have a great weekend.