From the editor:
Dear readers! The summer has begun, somewhat reluctantly in parts of Europe, and the pandemic continues to dominate public discussions.
We’ve been sending you a number of Newsflashes since the beginning of the year, but no Newsletter. Not because we haven’t been busy, rather the opposite! Prior to the summer break (if you’re having one – strange time that this is), here is a selection of items which reflect the shift in EHFF’s activities since 2019. We are committed as ever to our mission to transform health and healthcare, but the activities briefly described below reflect that we are evolving as an organisation: we are in transition, and currently actively working to redefine ourselves within the boundaries of our mandate.
This Newsletter covers:
- our work with Ubiquity University (e.g. the series of 10 Humanity Rising webinars we co-produced on aspects of European health),
- a further report on our exciting scenario (three horizons) project, led by a team managed by Ian Kendrick,
- our continuing work with All Policies for a Healthy Europe and the Wellbeing economy (e.g. the project for setting up a WEAll hub in Ireland),
and finally
- an innovative multi-national project to provide a digital platform to enhance primary care, which Daniel Steenstra reports on.
EHFF and Ubiquity University:
On June 17th we ran the final webinar of our second 5 webinar series for Ubiquity University https://humanityrising.solutions/ within their ongoing programme called ‘Humanity Rising’. The webinars were produced in partnership with Nordic Health 2030 (represented by Lars Munter, who is also on the EHFF Advisory Board) and recordings of all ten are now accessible on our YouTube channel. Go to our website features page for descriptions of all 10v and links to the recordings https://ehff.eu/features/ . Lars and I agreed with Jim Garrison, the CEO of Ubiquity, that we’d put on 5 more webinars in the Autumn, starting September 9th. Ubiquity University, an online university based on the US West Coast, has been running since 1996, but in its present form has been developed by Jim Garrison and his team from 2005. Following our recent webinar series, we’ve been invited to contribute one or more course modules to Ubiquity’s newly launched Masters in Regenerative Action (MRA) and Lars and I will be working on this during the summer. Ubiquity is not-for-profit and the concept is of providing accredited low-cost learning modules online. (See https://www.ubiquityuniversity.org/ for more).
Our Three Horizons work
Having completed our initial analysis of the survey data and constructed systems maps for the three horizons view of the European health ecosystem (we’ll put the systems maps up on the website shortly), the team of Ian Kendrick, Daniel Steenstra, Kristine Sorenson, Sean Conlan, Lars Munter, Noel Harrington and myself are now working on disseminating the knowledge (for example, we’re presenting at two conferences in the Autumn; the International Health Literacy Summit and the OR63 conference (specifically the systems stream of the Operational Research Society’s conference)). This activity, which has now been running for nearly a year, is also allowing us to review EHFF’s original positioning statement and to decide our future role in supporting the transformation of health and healthcare. We’ve also, in the context of more clearly defining our role and activity and as discussed at the AGM in March, set up a small group to look at using the Business Canvas Model as a tool to add clarity to the work on improving our sustainability. We’ll keep you posted on that one!
The Wellbeing Economy
Our work with All Policies for Healthy Europe continues. A recent development is the plan to establish closer links with the OECD WISE development (Centre on Well-being, Inclusion, Sustainability and Equal Opportunity) and the other new event is the appointment of someone to run a Wellbeing observatory for AP4HE. We are working with the latter to determine mutual benefits from this project. A major interest of ours at present is the continuing task of attempting to set up a WEAll (Wellbeing Economy Alliance) Hub for all Ireland. Sean Conlan, myself, and Caroline Whyte, our colleague from FEASTA have been engaged in this for more than six months. A milestone has now been passed – we feel we have a strong core team of six (details will be available shortly on a special page for Ireland on the WEAll website https://weall.org/hubs ) and on June 23rd a two hour welcome meeting was held with 40 or so interested parties. A report on this meeting will be found on the web page, which we hope will go up before the end of this month and we aim to have the majority of the attendees as the first stage of building a network of stakeholders. There are also developments at Government level on both sides of the border, which we are tracking closely.
OnKai
EHHF members Charlyn Belluzzo and Daniel Steenstra have co-founded OnKai – a start-up registered in the US using technology for health equity. Whilst independent from EHHF, it is seeking to establish a formal partnership to pursue a shared vision for health and wellbeing. OnKai optimises health outcomes of people by connecting and aligning stakeholders to design, develop and deliver solutions for healthcare gaps. The company’s AI-powered platform engages healthcare professionals to close gaps for their patients and communities, enabling them to do more and serve better by creating alignment with peers, foundations, pharma, and device corporations in co-producing solutions for these gaps – from research to application. Each healthcare stakeholder from the palm of their hand has access to a stream of connections, resources and solutions for closing healthcare gaps. OnKai nudges them to make small, fast and cohesive changes that together transforms healthcare – see https://onkai.co
The company’s initial focus is on the US, specially working with free and community clinics and healthcare researchers, whilst building links to other stakeholders and geographical areas. Members of EHFF and OnKai will shortly meet to explore opportunities for partnership and collaborative action.
Our other activities, such as further community building, the FEASTA/EHFF podcasts and the ongoing CEmPaC project continue as before, and we’ll provide an update on some of this work in the Autumn.