Bridging the gap: Digital skills in Health and Care
In 2022, at the State of the Union, Ursula von der Leyen announced that 2023 will be the European Year of Skills and set the objective of “a Europe fit for the digital age” as one of the EU Commission’s priorities. Yet, a significant proportion of Europeans lack basic digital skills and there is a significant imbalance among Member States.
In the health sector, digitalisation is set to revolutionise medical practices, access to care, and relations between doctors and patients. Yet, the digital transformation of the health and care sector remain unequal and imbalanced across Europe.
All Policies for A Healthy Europe calls for a clearer strategy for digital health skills and a coordinated policy approach that can maximise the potential of digitalisation in Europe.
Read our full paper with recommendations below:
Empowering Citizens
The Key to a successful digital health transformation
In its 2020 European Semester review of Member States’ health systems, the European Commission pointed at issues with the development and use of digital health services, ‘with insufficient coordination and cooperation between healthcare providers, and a limited integration of health and social care services’.
We need:
Digital Skills and Literacy
- Include a focus on digital health literacy in the Digital Education Action Plan•
- Encourage the development of specific curricula and life-long training programs for key stakeholders
European Health Data Space
- Rapidly create a European Health Data Space to enable facilitate health data exchanges and strengthen cooperation across Member States.
- Promote interoperability of health data systems through the further development of common interoperability standards
Artificial Intelligence
- Explore and invest in research to enable explainability of AI
- Recommend the use of the ethics guidelines for trustworthy AI
