Across Europe the healthcare sector is under great pressure, and while these issues prevailed already before the COVID-19, this pandemic has certainly magnified the issues and pointed to where the shortcomings are. However, we have also seen that a crisis can also be driver for innovation and the Corona Crisis has done it’s part in boosting digitalization in health and care.
Looking back on the meeting in Baden Württemberg – Mannheim showed that medical data is useful to develop, maintain and have a bright perspective on how people now and in the future will need medical care.
For instance, a child born today in Germany has an estimated time to live for a hundred years, obviously this means a lot for health care.
Several presentations showed the ITHACA partners that the Covid pandemic pushed the digital development. Medical data should be more connected to each other, although that depends on rules, regulations and the culture of the countries involved. And a medical network, whether it is about data or about human interest, needs to be managed!
But also to not forget the human side to this all, the Covid pandemic brought people together all over the world, not physically but in creative ideas to look after each other.
Care given on personal needs, in a small setting with the integration of data is the future, people will be able to stay longer in their home.
Drinking coffee in a domestic setting to strengthen the contact, peer to peer, to talk about ‘’the good old days’’ will help people to feel needed and ‘’seen’’. This affects their health and their wellbeing. We all need to be social to be included.
