Highlights of Exporpymes and RIES 22 conferences in A Coruna, Spain

Exporpymes

This is the first time the healthcare sector was invited to the Exporpymes trade fair. For us to be invited and showcase our solution was a real privilege. Listening to other exhibitors from across the world was really inspiring and emphasised the demand for digital solutions in healthcare globally.

A highlight was listening to Birgit Krieger the CEO of Estonia-based company SpeakTX, which hasdeveloped a digital speech and therapy support platform for people who have had strokes, a subject very close to me personally.

As part of our visit we met Alberto Fuentes Losada - General Secretary of the Ministry of Health, Galacia, Jorge Prado Casal – Head of Information Service Management in the Galicia region and Benigno Roson Calvo – Deputy Director general of IT systems of Ministry of Health, Galicia.

They explained how the Spanish public healthcare system operates, including that itwas shaped by the NHS 20 years ago.

It was particularly interesting to hear how they approach interoperability. The 17 different healthcare regions in Spain work autonomously from each other, but any software or system deployed in a region must be interoperable with those in other regions.

Digital maturity within Spain is hugely varied, however the Galicia region have a brilliant publicly funded patient record and communication system that has been a huge success. It was interesting to hear how the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated digital transformation and how strong digital adoption was received in an area with an ageing population.

RIES22

There was a huge variety of key note speakers throughout the event and all were high quality. One of which was Tjasa Sobocan – from the Government office for digital transformation in Slovenia. She explained the huge digital transformation programme being undertaken across Slovenia. Hospitals in the country are fairly new adopters of big tech, so they are looking for companies with solutions to collaborate with, to help expand their health tech offering.

A recurring theme throughout the event was ensuring elderly people aren’t left behind as healthcare becomes more digitised in Europe, and how governments can develop educational resources to ensure this doesn’t happen.

The event was incredibly informative, with a wide range of high-quality speakers, however the best part was the people we met along the way. We were lucky enough to be involved in a group of hugely talented and driven professionals whose intellect, passion and problem-solving approaches trajectory gave us huge confidence in the future of healthcare.

We were particularly impressed by the work being carried out by Brendan Crossey – founder and CEO of Healthcare Analytics and Nightingale Analytics. The company has developed an early dementia diagnosis platform. The platform creates standardised assessments, with a long term view to create virtual dementia specialists in every GP practice. This took is particularly powerful as early diagnosis for dementia patients means they are more likely to get the right support at the right time.