If it seems that the world is moving faster and faster with the rapid evolution of AI and other technologies, the digitalization of healthcare infrastructure is not changing with that speed. However, countries across Europe are ambitiously pursuing digitalization efforts. 

On top of that, under the European Health Data Space legal framework,  countries in the European Union are building the MyHealth @EU infrastructure which aims to enable cross-border health information accessibility and services.

In this episode, you will get an insight in the state of healthcare and digitalization in Germany, the Netherlands, and Slovenia. All three countries have published their new digitalization strategies in the last 6 months.  Slovenia plans to gradually expand the annual budget for eHealth from 6 million EUR to 80 million. Hospitals in Germany received 4,3 billion EUR for digitalization projects and need to demonstrate by 2024, that funded projects have been implemented and are making an impact. The Netherlands passed a new electronic Data exchange in healthcare law in April and plans on spending 1,4 billion for healthcare digitalization by 2026. 

The challenge with healthcare digitalization and reforms are complex, due to various data privacy concerns, the digital divide, integration issues among different healthcare information systems, different complexities of healthcare systems’ design, and legal constraints from the past, that now need to be changed. 

You will hear more in this discussion with the representatives of healthcare ministries in Slovenia, Germany, and the Netherlands. 

Speakers: 

• Alenka Kolar, Acting Director-General Directorate for Digitalisation in Healthcare at the Ministry of Health Slovenia 
• Sebastian Zilch, Head of e-Health, Gematik & Telematics Infrastructure at the German Federal Ministry of Health
• Bianca Rowenhorst, CIO Ministry of Health, Welfare, and Sports in the Netherlands