The RemoteHealthcare workshop was held on Monday the 20th of October 2023 at the National Foundation of Research in Athens. The workshop aimed to facilitate telemetry healthcare professionals providing remote healthcare monitoring services at the point of care.

The event brought together 33 participants in-person from diverse backgrounds and industries, alongside another 28 virtual participants. The workshop included a set of short speeches with extensive discussion over the raised topics and an interactive session with hands-on tests on the presented technologies.

Participants engaged in thoughtful discussions, sharing valuable insights on current unmet needs on homecare and care provided in hospitals. Although the primary aim was to focus on homecare, especially addressing the needs of people in greater need like chronic patients and elderly, several concerns were raised by professionals who expressed their daily difficulties trying to do their job and how telecare could provide some ease in such services provision.

It was initially considered granted that the public healthcare mechanism in hospitals would be more efficient, but the truth was rather different with several concerns from big urban hospitals (>1000 beds) who struggle to cope with the patient congestion, but also peripheral and rural hospitals and regional clinics (mainly islands) that are critically under-facilitated.

Participant Feedback

Feedback from participants was overwhelmingly positive, with many expressing satisfaction with the content, format, and presented solutions of the workshop. Common themes in feedback included:

• Need to further stretch the needs of patients at home and at the same time the ever-demanding needs of hospitals, especially rural (islands) facilities.
• Strong interest from managers of hospitals from islands who struggle with existing infrastructures despite available budget for solutions.
• Positive feedback on bringing together so many different stakeholders to have discussions
• Positive feedback on providing real and practical solutions that have been piloted and have proven feasibility for immediate employment by governmental and private facilities.
• Appreciation for the quality of speakers and presenters.
• Need for local authorities to be informed of such innovative solutions that may assist the wellbeing of their citizens, especially for areas with lesser facilities  
• Very high interest in similar future workshops and follow-up events with practical recommendations for specific agendas, invited decision makers, invited managers of clinics, and representatives of health associations.

Conclusion

The RemoteHealthcare workshop was a successful and engaging event that achieved its objectives. The positive feedback from participants and the valuable insights generated during the workshop highlighted the importance of such collaborative initiatives. 

The next workshop in the series, Responsible Innovation in the Active and Assisted living domain, will now take place in September 2024 – More details can be found here