OPEN DEI “HEALTH & CARE” CLUSTER

The Health & Care Cluster gathers several Large-Scale Pilot projects financed by the European Programme for Research and Innovation, Horizon 2020. The Health & Care Cluster projects are framed within the OPEN DEI Innovation Action aligning reference architectures, open platforms and large-scale pilots in digitalising European Industry. The cluster counts 5 working groups focused on Dissemination, Architecture, Use Cases, KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation).

FAITH has been part of all of the Working Groups since 2020.

WHO Digital and Assistive Technologies for Ageing (DATA) Webinar Series

Sustaining the cohesive role played by technology nowadays, the World Health Organization (WHO), under its Global Cooperation on Assistive Technology or GATE initiative, launched Digital and Assistive Technologies for Ageing to encourage the global development, synthesis, and use of affordable, quality, digital and assistive technologies to cope with the challenges brought by ageing.

WHO launched the Digital and Assistive Technologies for Ageing (DATA) to encourage the development, synthesis, and use of solutions that promote access to affordable, quality, digital and assistive technologies for people with impairment or decline in physical or mental capacity, with a particular focus on older people. Within WHO, DATA brings together perspectives from a number of different departments, including Ageing and Life Course, Digital Health and Innovation, Health Systems and Service Provision, and Health Products, and Policy and Standards. The initiative builds on the successful WHO Global Cooperation on Assistive Technology (GATE) and healthy ageing initiatives, and similarly will be applicable in low-income, middle-income, and high-income contexts.

“Health & Care” Cluster at the WHO DATA Webinar Series

With the aim to explore the wealth of research carried out internationally on digital and assistive technologies for ageing, WHO DATA in collaboration with the EU’s Health & Care Cluster organized a first webinar on 21 May 2021. The online event brought together ten large-scale pilot projects from the Cluster to show how a range of digital and assistive technologies can be used together to enhance smart and healthy ageing in communities across diverse European contexts.

The welcome speech by Dr. Clive Ondari, Director of the Health Products Policy and Standards Department at WHO, shed light on the role of DATA with a particular focus on person-centred integrated assistive care for older people.

The projects financed by the European Commission via its Horizon2020 Programme for research and innovation highlighted some of the efforts of the Health & Care Cluster. The presentations showcased selected approaches including co-designing digital solutions for and with older persons, and shared lessons learnt in organizing and implementing large-scale pilots, building on the constraints and opportunities of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The webinar also stressed the importance of looking at the broader ecosystem: various contributions underlined the interdependencies between technological progress, economic development, and human values to ensure responsible research and innovation.

In his closing remarks, Luc Nicolas, Open DEI Ambassador of the Health and Care Cluster, stressed the importance to break the silos and focus on the final beneficiaries to fully embrace the potential of digital and assistive technologies.

Meet the “Health & Care” cluster

Learn more about the Health & Care cluster by visiting the OPENDEI website, and find out also about OPENDEI framework for Europe’s digital transformation strategy to support the implementation of next generation digital platforms in four basic industrial domains: Manufacturing, Agriculture, Energy and Healthcare.