Health. The conference specialising in digital health aimed to find solutions to the challenges facing this field.
On 26 October, the fourth edition of the Barcelona Health Hub summit, the #BHHSummit-Solving Real Challenges in Healthcare, was held at the Sant Pau Art Nouveau Site, a sectoral meeting to address the main challenges and opportunities that are being generated in the digital health sector. The event brought together experts from fields related to digital health, as well as representatives of the Administration such as the first deputy mayor of Barcelona City Council, Jaume Collboni, the director general of Innovation and Entrepreneurship of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Lluís Juncà, and the president of BHH, Cristian Pascual, who were the main speakers at the opening ceremony.
The Barcelona Health Hub (BHH) is an entity created to promote innovation in digital health and its transfer to the sector, bringing together startups, healthcare organisations, companies and investors. For the fourth year, the BHH has organised the international meeting which, in this edition, focused on analysing how alliances and partnerships have become the main driver of progress within the various industries related to digital health, from startups to insurance companies, hospitals or pharmaceutical companies. It also discussed the need to boost innovation, how to respond to the growing demand for healthcare and the most cutting-edge technologies that are helping to address current challenges.
At the opening ceremony, Jaume Collboni stressed that in just four years, BHH “has become a key player in Barcelona’s ecosystem, giving dynamism and boosting the digital health sector and entrepreneurship”. In this regard, he recalled that science and technology are part of the city’s DNA, and gave as an example that 13% of start-ups in the city are of these types. The Deputy Mayor pointed out that “the City Council has made a structural commitment to entrepreneurial and scientific talent, where digital health, biotechnology and the pharmaceutical industry play an important role”. Collboni also recalled the existing collaboration between Barcelona City Council and BHH to promote the ecosystem and congratulated the association on the agreement it has reached with the Hospital de Sant Pau Foundation to refurbish a new pavilion that will allow them to grow on the site.
For his part, Lluís Juncà stressed the importance of life sciences companies, which currently number 1,300 in Catalonia and represent 9% of the gross domestic product. He highlighted the fact that the sector is reinventing itself to find new solutions to current challenges, and that it has found a great ally in the economic sector. Juncà also stressed the importance of innovation linked to sustainability and called for the digital health sector to align itself with this premise. Efficiency and sustainability must lead the sector’s progress.
Cristian Pascual closed the opening ceremony by recalling the need to continue making progress in the digital health sector, where the development of new technological solutions that contribute to guaranteeing the sustainability of the health system will be increasingly necessary. According to him, in the next ten years there will be a shortage of 50% of professionals in this field. Pascual also recalled the change of paradigm in health treatment, and its shift from the concept of sick care to that of health care, this is the preventive medicine as opposed to disease care.