The second e-health workshop of Actua program received around fifty participants, including International e-health companies.El segon clúster “’d’e-health” de la iniciativa Actua ha comptat amb una cinquantena de participants, així com la participació d’empreses internacionals pioneres en el sector de l’“e-health”.
The opening session was driven by Pascual Gràcia, leader of Health and Wellness cluster, who recalled the importance of the work achieved within this cluster. Pascual Gàrcia also presented clusters cooperation as a tool for enhancing the creation of new transversal initiatives. As a matter of fact, e-health cluster emerged from the conciliation of Technology and Health, whose mutual goal is to subserve population’s wellness.
Then, Dr. López Gil, CEO of Dermandtek, a brand new dermatologic center, highlighted the use of new technologies for diagnosis and prevention. Dr. López Gil gave the example of the center’s new investment: a full-body scanner that shows changes in moles over time and enhances patients monitoring over time. As for Dídac Barco, the dermatologist of Dermandtk, he mentioned the case of a new phototherapy treatment that is not yet available in Barcelona.
The next speaker, CEO of the French company Smart Risks, Xavier Wagner, introduced the platform autono.me. This platform uses water and electricity meters to collect raw consumption data at home and to provide activity and usage based footprint. It detects abnormal consumption variations, enhances frail elders and people with disabilities’ monitoring and decreases intervention delays.
Afterwards, Pablo Camba, Health solutions director in Spain of the German grup T-Systems introduced a new telemonitoring software designed for multi-pathological patients. The software allows doctors to access the entire electronic patient data from a tablet and as a consequence, improves efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
During the session, participants detected that diagnosis and treatment are not the only elements to take into account. Technology should also enhance the daily life of persons with a disability. According to Lucia Chapa, CEO of the Spanish company Accitymaps, 1,700 million people in the world have some form of disability and 35% of them are active users of new technologies. Based on these figures, Chapa highlighted the need for improving access and mobility of disabled persons. In the same vein, Chapa introduced a Google-Maps-inspired application, designed to calculate free-obstacle routes, among other things.
The last speaker, Ester Peralba, co-founder of P.I Advocats, emphasized the importance of business methods protection. She expounded business method patents and set the example of online shopping platform Amazon in the US. According to Peralba, business methods are not yet patentable in Europe, but still she recommends companies to protect the integrity of the individual elements that make up their business methods. As a matter of fact, new technologies represent a major asset for companies, whose protection is essential to encourage the creation of new initiatives.
Closing session was driven by Albert Moles, leader of Innovation cluster, who recalled the relevancy of using new technologies in Healthcare, demonstrated by the speakers. Albert Moles also introduced the privatization of Innovation cluster as a result of the work done.