March 2014

EPF co-organised the Careum Congress in March which prominently featured patient empowerment. We also expressed our view together with the European Public Health Alliance on the Europe 2020 Strategy during this month.

The power of patient 3.0 or patient empowerment

The March’s Careum Congress 2014 entitled "The power of patients 3.0" explored ways to engage patients in future healthcare systems.

This Congress was also the second conference of the European Network on Patient Empowerment (ENOPE), in which EPF is a member. The event highlighted patient-related innovations and solutions that will shape the future of our health systems and centre on the patient. 

Patient empowerment was also at the centre of the EMPATHiE tender “EMpowering PAtients in the management of chronic diseases” that ended in September. EPF took part in this tender to achieve a common understanding of the concept and identify good practices, success factors and barriers.

The results of the Tender will be publicly available in 2015.

EPF will lead on a patient empowerment campaign next year that will run until mid-2016, starting with a launch conference on 20-21 May 2015. This campaign will take the European discussions a crucial next step forward – towards concrete actions at practical and political levels, led by the patient community in partnership with all relevant stakeholders.

It will provide an unprecedented opportunity to advance patient empowerment in a sustainable way, and create the environment to contribute towards genuine sustainability of health systems and societal ‘growth’.

Health dimension in the financial framework

Long-term European programmes include the new Multi-annual Financial Framework 2014-2020 which will go under review in 2015.

EPF together with the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA) expressed our views on the Europe 2020 Strategy in an open letter, raising issues linked to the poverty, education, research, and employment targets (link).