Workshop: "Digital health innovations"

‘Inclusive digital technologies’ can be defined as ICT applications with high impact on social wellbeing. When implemented in the health sector, these technologies can become an important driver of general wellbeing. Such digital health innovations can also bring opportunities for economic growth, given the size of the sector in most OECD countries.

The workshop ‘Digital health innovations’, which took place in the Netherlands (The Hague and Eindhoven) on 11-13 April 2018, brought together experts from the research and innovation policy, health policy and digital policy fields, in order to discuss  about a topic that stands at the crossroads of these different policy areas. It focused in particular on three topics:

• Field labs in the Netherlands. The Dutch Smart Industry Field Labs are a promising new addition to the toolbox of policy makers wishing to enable and support SMEs to develop ICT-related innovations. These test-facilities are of easy access for SMEs developing products and services in markets with high-speed innovation cycles, and have become an important complement to other more traditional research and innovation instruments. 
• Building the connectivity infrastructure (5G). Policy makers face important challenges in stimulating private investment to provide futureproof, secure and competitive connectivity, notably 5G-networks. Increasing use of health (and other) applications world-wide, create a need for international standards and a simple but effective regulatory framework, among others. The workshop aimed at identifying those key challenges and exploring the range of possible policy responses.
• Data sharing for health innovations. The workshop explored the challenges that policy makers face in stimulating the development and diffusion of smart health innovations and practices that rely on data-driven technologies. One of the topics of the discussion was the need of international standards regarding the secure sharing of (patient) data to facilitate AI-diagnostic support. 

Participation in the workshop was open to members of all OECD member states who are also members of the relevant OECD committees and working parties: the Health Committee (HEA), the Committee on Digital Economy Policy (CDEP), the Committee for Scientific and Technological Policy (CSTP), and the working parties on Innovation and Technology Policy (TIP), on Communication Infrastructures and Services Policy (CISP), and on Security and Privacy in the Digital Economy (SPDE). 

This workshop was organised jointly by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy, the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport and the OECD.

Read the full report of the workshop here.