Oliver Bisazza
CEO, MedTech Europe
The 2024 renewal of the EU institutions marks a pivotal moment for European health policies. The start of the new policy cycle 2024–2029 will offer EU policymakers the chance to drive forward necessary healthcare changes to benefit patients and healthcare professionals.
Cornerstones of a healthcare transformation
The EU should use the opportunity to further develop healthcare systems that are:
- Patient access-oriented: The EU should address remaining challenges of access to equitable healthcare for patients with actionable solutions.
- Digitally advanced: Supporting digitalisation will pave the way for transformative healthcare practices that support patients and healthcare professionals.
- Resilient: Implementing the lessons learned from the Covid-19 pandemic will build more resilient healthcare systems.
- Sustainable: Embracing sustainability can ensure that the healthcare sector improves its environmental performance while maintaining the highest standards of health and safety.
Policies required to enable transformation
The European medical technology sector will be a crucial partner in this change. Throughout a patient’s journey, medical technologies can prevent, diagnose, treat, manage and cure. Their use alleviates healthcare burden and improves efficiency and outcomes. With the help of such solutions, the EU should develop forward-thinking policies focusing on:
- Meeting key healthcare challenges like infectious, non-communicable, chronic and age-related diseases;
- Taking the best of the current CE marking system for medical technologies and making it more efficient, predictable and innovation-friendly;
- Amplifying the role of public-private partnerships for innovation;
- Embracing the ‘better regulation’ principles by reducing overlap and discrepancies between different legislations;
- Ensuring the benefits of AI-enabled medical technologies reach healthcare systems and patients;
- Investing in digital health literacy to maximise benefits of digitally enabled healthcare solutions;
- Developing a true single market for digital health and health data;
- Increasing the retention of healthcare professionals by encouraging better support from Member States;
- Recognising and increasing competitiveness and autonomy in the supply of critical materials and components;
- Developing effective measures to shield European healthcare systems’ medical technology suppliers against international trade distortions;
- Ensuring crisis preparedness and response through appropriate and well-coordinated mechanisms for joint procurement of medical countermeasures;
- Adjusting the EU’s regulatory framework to embrace the full potential of ‘Real-World Evidence’ to improve patient care while guaranteeing the safety and usability of medical devices.
Achieving this vision will require support from many healthcare actors. The European medical technology industry stands ready to help make it a reality.