On Friday 21 November the opening session of the European Health Parliament took place in the Google offices in Brussels. The 80 members of the European Health Parliament are graduates under the age of 35 coming from 20 countries, including some non-EU countries. They work in the EU Parliament and the EU Commission as well as in NGOs, trade associations, industry, hospitals, insurances, patients’ and nurses’ organisations.
The first plenary session of the European Health Parliament was moderated by European Voice editor Peter O’ Donnell and featured video-interviews with four young Members of the European Parliament) sharing their views on opportunities and challenges of European healthcare. The Members of Parliament expressed their support for the project, for example Ms Soledad Cabezon Ruiz from Spain said that “this is a great initiative especially in this moment when the economic sustainability of healthcare systems is being questioned”.
Guest speakers included McKinsey’s Associate Principal Brent Hooper, who presented the key trends in healthcare and College of Europe Professor Olivier Costa, who talked about the European Health Parliament’s inspiration and academic objectives.
Thinking long-term about healthcare policies
During the afternoon session the 80 participants were divided in 7 sub-committees, each one dedicated to a specific healthcare topic. The topics range from big data to prevention of chronic diseases, access to therapeutic innovation, cross-border health threats, e/m health, the economic dimension of healthcare and patient empowerment.
The European Health Parliament will meet several times and at the end of the project in June 2015, their recommendations will be gathered in 7 academic papers to be shared with policymakers and the wider civil society.
This project is initiated by Janssen with the support of Google, the College of Europe, the EU magazine European Voice and the network of young Members of the European Parliament EU40. The project partners aspire to facilitate an idea generating platform with the 80 young professionals and Master’s students based in the Brussels area, who are potential healthcare leaders of the future.
For a video with the highlights of the opening session click here.
The video interviews with the four Members of the European Parliament can be seen here.
More information on the European Health Parliament: http://www.healthparliament.eu/