The conference day, which took place at of IRCAD, the French Institute for Research into Cancer of the Digestive System (known in French as Institut de Recherche contre les Cancers de l'Appareil Digestif) in Strasbourg, started off with roundtables in French and English on the topic of cross-border cooperation in the field of digital health to ensure the continuity of healthcare pathways. The morning session was introduced and moderated by Jonathan Lotz, CEO of Pulsy, a regional agency supporting the development of digital health in the Grand Est region. This was followed by a video message recorded by Professor Jacques Marescaux, President-Founder of Ircad, who welcomed all participants to the event. Laurent Dal Mas, Director of Quality, Performance and Innovation at the Regional Health Agency (ARS) Grand-Est, Louisa Stüwe and David Sainati, both representatives of the Ministerial eHealth Delegation at the French Ministry of Health and Prevention, respectively presented a feedback on the French Presidency of the Council of the European Union and the French eHealth acceleration strategy.

The first table on “Digital health for the benefit of cross-border healthcare trajectories - European initiatives” was moderated by Angelica Cavalcante from the French eHealth agency (ANS), bringing together several European speakers:

• Konstantin Hyppönen, DG SANTE, European Commission on the deployment of MyHealth@EU and its use cases: Patient record, ePrescription, eDispensation;
• Hervé Barge, Director General of the Luxembourg eHealth Agency, on the deployment of MyHealth@EU in Luxembourg, including ePrescription;
• Marc Loutrel, French eHealth agency (ANS), France, on the deployment of French eHealth agency (ANS), in France; and
• Georgios Margetidis, European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA), European Commission, presenting recommendations for a European electronic vaccination card

The second roundtable on Digital health for the benefit of cross-border healthcare collaborations - “Innovative territories” was moderated by Dr. Sandra Chalhoub of Grand E-Nov+, the Innovation and international development agency of the Grand-Est region and involved:

• Germany: Dr. Manfred Zahorka, Senior Manager, OptiMedis, the operator responsible for transforming the local health system, deploying an integrated health approach to the territory;
• France: Fanny Loux, project manager for Health Territories of Tomorrow (TSD), Eurometropolis of Strasbourg and Jean-Charles Dron, operational director of the eMeuse Santé programme of the Departmental Council of the Meuse department, two structuring projects that have won in the national call for projects “Territories of Innovation” with the purpose is to fund real-life applications of technologies and new services and experimental deployments of sufficient size to prefigure the territorial development models of tomorrow.

The third round table, moderated by Louisa Stüwe, focused on the use of health data across borders for research and innovation for the benefit of cross-border healthcare collaborations. It involved researchers, private and institutional actors who presented their research projects and allowed all actors around the table to discuss on what is necessary for the sharing of health data across borders for research projects, and specifically in the four cross-border countries of the Grand-Est region. There were five speakers at this roundtable:

• Professor Jochen Klucken, Chair and Full Professor for Digital Medicine, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg on a connected care project for Parkinson patients in Luxembourg, towards digital health pathways, combining primary and secondary use of health data
• Catherine Commaille-Chapus, Associate Director, Impact Healthcare, France, on the launch of the large-scale Franco-German project AIOLOS, a real-time multi-source data collection platform based on AI and predictive modeling, is to detect an epidemic linked to a respiratory pathogen at the very first signs, monitor its progression, take appropriate measures and assess their impact.
• Dr Domitille Boudard, Scientific Director, Neurex, France on Neurex, a trinational network of the Upper Rhine Valley dedicated to neuroscience research, and HaPpY, an international network of research laboratories, clinics, companies and associations dedicated to the study of the comorbidity between chronic pain and mood disorders;
• Professor Agnès Bloch Zupan, Faculty of Dental Surgery, University of Strasbourg, France, on several cross-border research projects on rare diseases, including, RARENET, an Interreg cross-border cooperation project that improves management of patients with autoimmune and/or oral-expression rare diseases through the interconnection, interaction, training and information of the various actors; and
• Professor Roman Hossein Khonsari, Necker Children Hospital (AP-HP), France and Medical Director of the Health Data Hub, France, to share his experience as a maxillofacial surgeon including for rare cranio-facial malformations, in response to Prof. Bloch-Zupan, on the Health Data Hub (HDH), the national gateway to access health data for public interest research, European consortium led by the HDH aiming at testing European health data space with several countries and data access platforms

The afternoon was organized around six thematic workshops aimed at deepening the topics of the three morning round tables:
The first workshop was dedicated to the challenges of accelerating digital health innovation for startups in the Grand-Est region and was moderated by Dr. Sandra Chalhoub of Grand E-Nov+ with: 

• Etienne Musquar, Grand E-Nov+ ; 
• Jérôme Fabiano, EIT HEALTH; 
• Guillaume Vetter-Genoud, SEMIA ; 
• Matis Ringdal, PIXACARE ; 
• Geoffrey Kretz, kwit; and 
• Bérangère Henrion, H'ability. 

Review the discussions here

Workshop 2 focused on the implementation of ePrescription in Estonia and Finland, moderated by Angelica Calvacante of the French eHealth Agency (ANS), with: 

• Liisa Lvova, TEHIK, Estonia; and
• Nella Savolainen, Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, Finland.

Review the discussions here

Workshop 3 on Innovative Territories of Tomorrow was moderated by Bruno Boutteau of the Regional Health Agency of the Grand-Est region with the participation of: 

• Dr Manfred Zahorka, Optimedis, Germany; and 
• Jean-Charles Dron, eMeuse Santé, France. 

Workshop 4 focused on the construction of healthcare pathway research projects and was moderated by Louisa Stüwe of the Ministerial eHealth Delegation, with :

• Diane Tassy, Research and Innovation Office, Ministry of Health and Prevention, with an overview of the health system performance research program (PREPS) of the General Directorate for the Provision of Healthcare (DGOS);
• Professor Gilles Chatellier, HEGP, AP-HP, Vice-Chair of the PREPS Selection Board on the specific issue of the prerequisites for being selected in this call for projects, particularly in relation to research projects on digital health; and
• Alban Dupoux, GIRCI EST, to explain how the Interregional Group of Clinical Research and Innovation of the Grand Est region can support researchers in the development of research projects.

Review the discussions here

Workshop 5 discussed the portability of a European citizen e-vaccination card and was moderated by François Kaag and his research team Dr. Alain Cimini and Pr Jean-Louis Koeck, including: 

• Georgios Margetidis, European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA), European Commission;
• Vincent Melis, Federal Ministry of Public Health; Belgium
• Hervé Barge, Directeur of the Luxembourg eHealth Agency,
• Dr Jürgen Rissland, Saarland University Hospital, Germany;
• Patrick Jolo, eHealth, Switzerland;
• Marc Loutrel, French eHealth agency (ANS), France, and
• Henri Lewalle and Denis Olivier, Economic and Social Committee, Grand-Est region

Review the exchanges here

Workshop 6 focused on cross-border digital health research projects in the field of rare diseases, moderated by Louisa Stüwe with :  

• Professor Agnès Bloch Zupan, Faculty of Dental Surgery, University of Strasbourg; and
• Steve Ursprung, Vice-President of the Scientific Council and “patient expert” representing the European patient association for Hypophosphatasia 

Review the exchanges here

The interministerial coordination warmly thanks all participants who attended the event as well as all co-organisers for actively contributing to setting up an ambitious and 100 % European digital health programme in the fully cross-border Grand-Est. It is expected that this conference day will have given inspiration and momentum to more fruitful cross-border collaborations in the field of digital health.