Health System Performance and Innovation Meeting

Round Tables address possibilities for innovative improvements in health systems

EIT Health partners and European experts held three Round Tables discussing “Performance and Innovation of Health Systems: How to produce and evaluate health systems? With what impact on the innovation processes?” in a 8 December gathering organised by EIT Health with Partners Health System Performance Assessment (HSPA) and Université Pierre et Marie Curie – Sorbonne Universités (UPMC), which hosted the event in Paris.

Three Round Tables covered Quality of care and innovative funding; Integrated care and implementation of innovation; and Primary care and existing big data contribution to healthcare system sustainability. The day before, EIT Health had hosted the members of the Health System Performance Assessment group (HSPA) to work on the “Primary Care” report. It gave the opportunity to EIT Health, HSPA, UPMC Sorbonne Universités and their partners to gather with the public to discuss the outcomes of this work session and potentially come up with a set of ideas and solutions to overcome some of the biggest challenges that European healthcare systems face today.

1st Round Table: Quality of Care and Innovative Funding, moderated by Jean-Marc Bourez, Managing Director of EIT Health France.

The panellists discussed about a model, in which providers (hospitals and physicians) are paid based on patient health outcomes resting on two key factors: transparency and patient-centricity. Disclosing outcome numbers to the public increases the quality of care and raises the patients’ awareness, two things that help manage costs of care.

2nd Round Table: Integrated Care and Large Scale Implementation of Innovation, moderated by Christian Anastasy, General Inspector, former CEO of the National Agency for Performance Support of Health and Medico-Social Institutions (ANAP).

A person’s care may be provided by several different health and social care professionals across different providers. As a result, people can experience fragmented health care services that are difficult to access and that are not based on their specific needs. Based on that observation, panellists discussed the need for care harmonization. The E.U. knows no physical borders, European citizens can travel freely from one country to another and expect the same level and price of care everywhere. Global harmonization calls for more digitalized data sharing and for the alignment of national health policies.

3rd Round Table: Primary Care and Use of Existing Data for Healthcare System Sustainability, moderated by Etienne Minvielle, professor of EHESP (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Santé Public).

Primary care is a key process in the health system. It is universally accessible, integrated, person-centered, comprehensive and coordinated, provided by a team of professionals accountable for addressing a large majority of personal health needs and delivered in a sustained partnership with patients and informal caregivers.

Primary care is not as good as it should be in most countries because of a lack of structures. The processing of health data is fundamental for better healthcare services, for patient’s safety and to advance research and improve public health. However, the EU tends to leave it up to the countries to create their own regulation on the matter. The risk is to produce discrepancies between states. What are they allowed to share, collect or even sell? How can we protect patients’ safety while ensuring patient’s data can be shared for healthcare and research purposes?

The goal of this meeting was not to find answers to these global issues but to generate discussions among practitioners, payers, regulators, policy makers, and outline possible solutions. Performance and innovation are global concepts which transcend borders or countries, but their evaluation is to be defined as per national policy makers, who more than ever need to get together and agree on common criteria and indicators.

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