VPH Institute links with Policy Makers

Creating anad hoccontact programme with policy makers was one of the main goals the VPH Institute Policy Affairs Work Group (PAWG) agreed to focus on. 

The contact programme is essential to fullfill some specific objectives:

• Introduce the concept of VPH to policy makers and brand VPH as an eHealth and EU funding success story, the promotion of which could help overcome the barriers to eHealth identified in the Commission Action Plan;
• Gain the support of a key MEP to host a European Parliamentary event which would promote VPH and further introduce the concept to policy makers;
• Establish contact with MEPs in advance of the publication of the European Parliament’s own initiative report on the eHealth Action Plan 2012-2020.

So far the implementation of the contact programme has been a great success, and up tp date the members of the PAWG can proudly announce to have met a number of policy makes from both the European Parliament and the Commission. More in details, meetings were scheduled with:

• Sean Kelly MEP (EPP, Ireland);
• Professor Vittorio Prodi MEP (S&D, Italy);
• Dr. Antonyia Parvanova MEP (ALDE, Bulgaria);
• Office of Ms. Anna Rosbach MEP (S&D, Denmark);
• Professor Anna Maria Costa Freitas (Office of Chief Scientific Advisor, European Commission);
• Dr. Philippe Jehenson (Scientific Advisor, DG Research, European Commission);
• Mr. Petru Luhan MEP (EPP, Romania).

Policy makers demonstrated a keen interest in the work of VPH as an eHealth solution that could lead toin silicoand personalised medicine and be deployed as an investment to control spiraling healthcare costs in the EU.

Both Mr. Sean Kelly MEP (EPP, Ireland) and Professor Vittorio Prodi MEP (S&D, Italy), agreed to co-host an event with VPH in the European Parliament on 26 June 2013 to discuss VPH and the European Commission eHealth Action Plan 2012-2020 in which VPH is specifically mentioned.