3rd conference on European Reference Networks

Vilnius, Lithuania

About the Conference

The 3rd official European Reference Network (ERN) conference took place in Vilnius, Lithuania, on the 9th of March. The event was well attended by around 600 healthcare providers, patient representatives, policy makers and health experts. The conference was an initiative of the European Commission, and was hosted by the Ministry of Health of Lithuania under the auspices of the Maltese Presidency of the Council of the EU.

The conference started with an opening video message of President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Junker, and political statements of the Commissioner on Health and Food Safety Vytenis Andriukaitis and the Ministers of Health of Lithuania (Aurelijus Veryga) and Malta (Christopher Fearne). Members of the European Parliament Françoise Grosstête and Bryan Hayes participated trough a video message as well.

The conference included four roundtables, addressing the following topics: organisation and management of ERNs; EU policies and supporting actions to ERNs; ERNs and national healthcare systems; and the way forward for the new ERNs.

The conference was concluded by a ceremony where Commissioner Andriukaitis officially awarded certificates to the 24 ERN Coordinators. They represented almost a thousand of multidisciplinary medical teams of more than 300 hospitals, located in 25 EU Member States and Norway.

All presentations and video recordings are available below.

More information and details

• Conference Programme
• Speakers and chairs' biographies
• Satisfaction survey results
• Exhibition posters
• Final report of the Conference

Presentations

09 March 2017

WELCOME ADDRESS

• Jean-Claude Juncker - President of the European Commission
• Vytenis Andriukaitis - Commissioner on Health & Food Safety
• Aurelijus Veryga - Minister of Health Lithuania
• Christopher Fearne - Minister of Health Malta
• Françoise Grossetête - Member of the European Parliament and Former Rapporteur of the Directive of Cross-border Healthcare
• Brian Hayes - Member of the European Parliament and leader of the European Advocates for Epilepsy group in the European Parliament

MORNING ROUNDTABLES: EUROPEAN UNION DIMENSION OF THE ERNs

Scene Setting and introduction to the roundtables

• Xavier Prats Monné - Director General of DG SANTE

Roundtable I: Operating European reference networks: organisation and management

Introduction by the Chair

• Andrzej Rys - Director Health Systems and Products, DG SANTE

Coordinators’ view on network management and governance

• Alberto Pereira - Coordinator ENDO-ERN
  PRESENTATION

IT platform as core element of the work; eHealth and telemedicine

• Tapani Piha - Head of Unit, Cross-border healthcare and e-Health, DG SANTE
  Herman Brand, Head of Unit, Information Systems, DG SANTE
  PRESENTATION

Cross-linking European Reference Networks

• Maurizio Scarpa - Coordinator MetabERN
  PRESENTATION

Debate & Questions

Roundtable II: EU Policies and Supporting Actions to the ERN

Introduction by the Chair

• John F. Ryan - Director, Public health, country knowledge, crisis management, DG SANTE

Rare Diseases policies in the EU

• Jarosław Waligóra - Policy Officer, EU policy on Rare Diseases
  PRESENTATION

RD-ACTION (mission and state of play of RD-ACTION, future challenges)

• Victoria Hedley - RD Joint Action coordination
  Ana Rath - RD Joint Action coordination
  PRESENTATION

Rare Cancer Joint Action

• Paolo Casali - JA Coordinator and ERN EUROCAN Representative
  PRESENTATION

Registries platform

• Simona Martin - Policy Officer, Health in Society, JRC
  PRESENTATION

Research policies and ERNs

• Iiro Eerola - Policy Officer, Innovative and Personalised Medicine, DG RTD
  PRESENTATION

Debate & Questions

Scene setting for the afternoon roundtables

• Justina Januševičienė - Member of the ERN Board, Ministry of Health of Lithuania

Roundtable III: ERNs and national healthcare systems

Introduction by the Chair

• Yann Le Cam - Eurordis Chef Executive Officer
  PRESENTATION

Patient pathways and clinical governance: Patient flow Knowledge generation and clinical practice

• Jean-Yves Blay - Coordinator ERN EURACAN
  PRESENTATION

Interrelationship between national systems and ERN: Member States view

• Nora Gamst - ERN Board of MS, Norway’s representative
  Paul Boom - ERN Board of MS, Netherland’s representative

Coordination hubs and ERN: an example of best practice in Malta

• Miriam Dalmas - ERN Board of MS, Maltese representative
  PRESENTATION

Debate & Questions

Roundtable IV: ERN: The way Forward

Introduction by the Chair

• Xavier Prats Monné - Director General, DG SANTE

Health care provider perspective

• Arimantas Tamašauskas - Member of the ERN Neuro
  PRESENTATION

Coordinator perspective

• Christopher Chapple - Coordinator of the eUROGEN network proposal
  PRESENTATION

Patient perspective

• Rebecca Tvedt - Patient representative in ERN BOND
  PRESENTATION
• Avril Daly - Patient representative in ERN-EYE
  PRESENTATION

Member States perspective

• Till Voigtländer - Chair of the ERN Board of Member States, Austria’s representative
  PRESENTATION

Debate & Questions