EUPHIX presentations

At the June 2008 WHO European Ministerial Conference in Tallinn, the EUPHIX system was presented in a satellite session. Hans van Oers, Eveline van der Wilk, Monique Kuunders and Bernard Ledésert, presented the features of the system, the quality procedures and the future possibilities of the system. The session generated interest with the attending. The EUPHIX system was represented by an information stand during the days of the conference.

The satellite session included the following presentations:

Introduction into the EUPHIX project by Hans van Oers

EUPHIX the making of by Monique Kuunders

The future of EUPHIX by Bernard Lédesert

This conference was organized on the occasion of the last general meeting of the ISARE 3 project. During the conference the results of phases 1, 2 and 3 of ISARE project on health indicators at sub national levels in European Union countries were presented. Also three linked projects, including EUPHIX, were presented.

In cooperation with ISARE, EUPHIX also presents data on infant mortality and BMI prevalence in different regions. The data have been delivered by the ISARE project in the frame of the project’s own data collection process. This information is included as an example of presenting results of Public Health Programme projects in EUPHIX.

At the 14th EUPHA (European Public Health Association) conference in Montreux (16-18 November 2006), the EUPHIX team hosted a workshop ‘Public health knowledge sharing in the European Union’. The workshop was well recieved and included the following presentations:

• EU Health Portal by Daniel Mann, DG-SANCO.
• EUPHIX’s goals and main features by Sanja Kaiser, RIVM
• EUPHIX content production protocols and demonstration by Eveline van der Wilk, RIVM, and
• EUPHIX editing interface and data presentation by Rutger Nugteren, RIVM.

This year's conference was held under the title 'Politics, Policy and/or the Public Health'.

More about the 14th EUPHA conference

ECHIM project meeting

Pieter Kramers presented the EUPHIX test release at the meeting of the ECHIM Core Group in Helsinki, February 14-15, 2006. The ECHIM project is the follow-up of ECHI, and is co-ordinated by Arpo Aromaa of KTL in Helsinki. The project aims at the further development of the ECHI list of health indicators, as well as at supporting its implementation. ECHIM and EUPHIX could work together on improvement of data source definition, associated data collection and their presentation as the ECHI indicators. This will evidently happen in close collaboration with Eurostat, WHO-Euro and OECD.

Working Party on Indicators and Mortality/Morbidity

Pieter Kramers gave a similar presentation at the Working Party on Indicators, May 10-11, 2006 and the Working Party Mortality/ Morbidity, June 6-7, 2006, in Luxemburg. These Working Parties act under the Information strand of the EU Public Health Programme as two out of seven Working Parties.

The fourth eHealth conference was organised through a partnership between the European Commission, the Austrian Presidency of the European Union, the Spanish Ministry of Health and Consumer Affairs, and the Andalusian Regional Ministry of Health.

The main theme of this year’s conference was the role of eHealth in the development of Health policies in the Europe of the regions. The representatives of governments and industry, researchers and experts explored a variety of issues regarding the application of ICT to the healthcare industry, such as individual electronic health cards containing complete medical records, the electronic prescription, interoperability of non-compatible technology, sophisticated portable / implantable devices (blood pressure or blood sugar level monitors embedded in intelligent clothing, for example), as well as health information portals.

The EUPHIX project representatives were invited by the DG SANCO to attend the launch of the EU Health Portal and present the project. The presentation and a short demonstration held by Sanja Kaiser and Eveline van der Wilk took place in the evening parallel session “Web-based tools for better health in Europe” on Thursday, 11 May, as well as on Friday, 12 May from 11:30 – 12:30 in the Exhibition hall.

EUPHIX was for the first time presented at an international conference during the last EUPHA conference in Graz, Austria, from 9-12 November 2005.

Peter Achterberg introduced the presentation, followed by Sanja Kaiser who told the audience about the background, goals and objectives of EUPHIX. Eveline van der Wilk demonstrated some sources of inspiration for EUPHIX, such as the Dutch Public Health Compass and Atlas, the Federal Health Monitoring system in Germay and Norhealth in Norway. The latter was more extensively elaborated on by a member of the audience, Heidi Lyshol from Norway.

The EUPHIX session was well received and elicited significant attention while providing the EUPHIX team with some interesting contacts.