EHRCON24 is all over, and it was a conference to remember. The beautiful Wokefield Estate in Reading proved the perfect location for bringing together some of the brightest minds in the health tech industry – from academics to researchers, educators, vendors and front-line clinicians – to set the tone for the future of digital health and patient care.
Some of the Highlights
It’s difficult for us to pick out the highlights, as presentations covered everything from data standards to federation, the role of AI in the future of digital healthcare, and of course, patient empowerment. But here are just a few…
Data for All
We heard from well-known patient advocate ‘e-Patient’ Dave deBronkart, whose inspiring talk on data accessibility drew from his own personal healthcare journey. We were also treated to a ‘Fireside Chat’ between the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change’s Dr Charlotte Refsum and the NHS’s Videha Sharma, who discussed the potential for digital health records to support preventative care, and empower patients by involving them in meaningful healthcare dialogues. The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)’s Alex Carter also talked about the economic realities of health data, highlighting the benefits of improving efficiencies not just for patients, but also from a broader financial perspective, whilst Luke Readman shared the success of NHS London’s case study in data sharing.
openEHR Around the World
Going one step further and putting theory into practice, several speakers touched on how real-world applications of openEHR are already changing patients’ lives. Dr. Patrik Georgii-Hemming talked about how openEHR is supporting data-driven decision-making at Karolinska Universitetslaboratoriet University Hospital. Severin Kohler from HiGHmed / Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin discussed openEHR’s potential for facilitating cross-institutional collaboration within Europe, whilst Dr. Jordi Piera Jiménez discussed Spain’s efforts to overcome regional fragmentation and establish a nationwide EHR system. We also heard about other innovative applications of the standard in Australia, Germany, Austria, Sweden, the Netherlands, Finland, and Nigeria, demonstrating how openEHR truly is traversing the globe to create unity, drive up the quality of healthcare and improve patient outcomes around the world.
Vendor Neutrality in Action
A joint presentation between vitagroup, Medblocks and CODE24 demonstrated the benefits of combining diverse platforms with SMART on openEHR for a truly interoperable, vendor-neutral solution, yet again highlighting the role of interoperability and collaboration to improve patient outcomes. freshEHR’s Dr Ian McNicoll also highlighted the need for standardised conformance testing to meet the growing demand for reliable openEHR systems.
Setting the Standard
Luckily for us, some of the leading experts in the healthcare IT standards arena joined us at the event. Special thanks to SNOMED International’s Don Sweete, Firely/ Health Level Seven International’s Ewout Kramer and IEEE’s Vincent L. Lopez and Varadraj Gurupur for making the trip, and sharing their insights into how collaboration between standards is the key to future interoperability.
AI is the Future
Several speakers, including Health Data Research UK (HDR UK)’s Andrew Morris and openEHR co-founder David Ingram, talked about the role of AI in personalised patient care, predictive analytics, and the importance of finding the right balance between technology and clinical expertise. Sidharth Ramesh of Medblocks ran an engaging and informative workshop on AI, which emphasised the need for proper guardrails to be put in place.
Collabrathon
One of the highlights of EHRCON24 was undoubtedly the ‘Collabrathon’, an interactive, collaborative event designed to inspire and cultivate innovative thinking while highlighting the essential role of interoperability and standards in effective health data management. Working in remote teams, participants addressed real-world healthcare challenges, showcasing practical implementations of the International Patient Summary (IPS) to improve patient care and outcomes. The coveted Collabrathon trophy went to The DataHub Maastricht team, led by Jonathan Mélius, Hélène Kabbech, and Kristīne Gusta, for their innovative drug-interaction checker. Peri Bloom‘s Kolah Eugene came a close second with his maternity health checker.
Global Collaboration
It was fantastic to see so much participation on social channels throughout (and after) the conference, with many attendees sharing key takeaways and some fantastic photos which truly captured the spirit of community and collaboration. A special mention has to go to the Avenue3 team, who made it their mission to snap everyone inside their ‘social media’ photo-frames…
David Ingram
A big thank you to our co-founder and Emeritus Professor of Health Informatics at UCL, Professor David Ingram, who not only treated us to a live reading from his book, Health Care in the Information Society – which is fast becoming a go-to resource for health informaticians the world over – but also presented the first ever ‘David Ingram Award for Outstanding Contribution to openEHR’ to CODE24’s Sebastian Iancu for his contribution to the standard.
Thank you
Firstly, a huge thank you to our sponsors: Better for a fantastic conference dinner, vitagroup for our delegate goodie bags, freshEHR for the notepads, CODE24 for the lanyards, Media Resources for our crew hoodies and name badges, Medblocks for the WiFi code, Amazon Web Services (AWS) for technical and financial support, and Avenue3 for the selfie frames. Not forgetting our exhibitors, vitagroup, Better, Media Resources, Imprivata, Ocean Health Systems and DrayTek Corp. and our official photographer Charlie Probets, who did a brilliant job of recording the event.
If you’d like to share your thoughts on EHRCON24, please fill in our feedback form. Your views matter to us, and we’ll take them seriously.
On behalf of the openEHR International team, we would like to extend our sincere thanks to all of our presenters, attendees and the entire openEHR community for making EHRCON24 an event to remember. We can’t wait to see you all again at EHRCON25.
What delegates said…
“The event highlighted the impressive growth of openEHR worldwide, demonstrated by diverse case studies and a flourishing ecosystem of vendors. It is clear that openEHR is creating meaningful change across continents, breaking down silos, and empowering healthcare providers to build modern applications.” – Phil Bottomley, Avenue3
“(HL7 and openEHR) are exploring the very first steps towards aligning their processes and make working with both standards in concert easier.This marks a pivotal moment in the healthcare interoperability landscape.” (HL7)
“It was great to see what is already possible with #openEHR today.” – Henrik Thiess, EY
“EHRCon24 did not disappoint. Congratulations to the openEHR International team for pulling off an amazing two+ days. We were able to pack so much in across various facets, innovation, implementation, research and policy. We have a great community, Can’t wait to do it again!” – Keisha Barwise, Jamaican Ministry of Health & Wellness
“A fantastic agenda, outstanding speakers, and real progress for openEHR. Huge thanks to the openEHR International team for pulling it all together!” – Cairen Ball, Avenue3
“I left the conference inspired by the collective commitment to leveraging technology for better healthcare.” – Myriam Fernández Martín, PhD, MSN, RN, AWS
“Great programme, fantastic speakers and impressive progress.” – Nils Hellrung, vitagroup
“The conference demonstrated the importance of open standards in healthcare and celebrated the valuable contributions of women in this field, paving the way for a more inclusive and innovative future in digital health.” – Animo Consultancy
“Excellent insight from Dr Patrik Georgii-Hemming from Karolinska University Hospital on the ‘tug-of-war’ between integration and specialisation, with #openEHR as the peacekeeper. When you can make this stuff understood and relevant to the front-line, you’re winning.” – Jonathan Probets, RGN
“Lots of people, interesting discussions, exciting talks.” – Markus Käppeli, CISTEC AG
“My conclusion after this exciting conference: Leading countries and institutions in the EU (and abroad) have taken pragmatic measures to build the core of their #ClinicalData on a mature, vendor-neutral standard: openEHR.” – Mathias Göschl, HiGHmed
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