Summer or not, the Belgian Digital Health scene remains an active area with plenty of new stories every month. Let’s dive into the key events of June.
KU Leuven spin-off company ArtiQ raised € 1 million to help doctors diagnose and treat respiratory diseases. Read more about ArtiQ and how they are improving healthcare in their English press release.
Belgian Digital Health startup, epihunter, introduces automated video functionality to their CE-marked seizure detection app – a breakthrough for children and adults with epilepsy, their families and doctors. Read the press release here (EN).
Onafhankelijke Ziekenfonds/Mutualités Libres wants to digitize all their documents by 2025. Numerikare highlights their digital efforts (FR/NL).
An important step for telehealth in Belgium in June: AXA launches teleconsultations for their customers in the fall of this year. Read their press release in French or Dutch.
The fourth edition of the MedTech Accelerator, an initiative by hub.brussels and lifetech.brussels was a success. With the wrap-up of the fourth edition already 34 projects have been supported over the past 4 years. Numerikare reports about the participating projects and the history of the accelerator (FR/NL).
Stent.care, a social network by and for patients was put in to the spotlight by Numerikare. Read the French article here.
At the UZ Gent, a robot assisted in a specific type of tracheal surgery for the first time in Belgium as reported here.
Another glimpse of the upcoming wave of robotics is shown by the social robot part of the ROBO-CURE research project. In this project a robot supports children with Diabetes at UZ Brussel. Read the Numerikare article here (NL) or here (FR) and watch the video here.
AZ Klina uses Virtual and Augmented Reality for revalidation via the C-Mill treadmill. Read more about this balance and gait therapy in Dutch.
Jessa Ziekenhuis launched an indoor navigation app helping patients to find their way in the hospital. Find out moor about this in their press release (NL).
The future possible reimbursement of mHealth apps got some attention in the Belgian press beginning of June where some Belgian Digital Health startups are questioning the slow progress made in this area by the government. Read the article from De Tijd here (NL) or l’Echo here (FR). l’Echo also wrote the validation pyramid that’s being set up by mHealthBelgium as can be read here (FR).
Two new governmental projects regarding eHealth have been announced as well. A first project is focused on interoperability and the set-up of so called eHealth Test Centers. The main purpose is to ensure software adheres to international standards (think IHE) and should help in avoiding to focus solely on Belgian specific interoperability standards (think KMEHR) which have no value outside of the Belgian borders. A next project concerns a periodic evaluation of eHealth adoption amongst healthcare professionals in order to improve the User Experience of Digital Health tools, an infamous Achilles’ heel of these tools. Read more about these projects in Dutch or French. The actual project is called the eHealth Monitor and will be carried out by IMEC. See the first glimpse of what to expect here.
Medi-Sphere reports about a new convention and associated budget of €2.5 Million between the RIZIV-INAMI and Recip-e with as purpose to improve the Quality of Service of the Recip-e. Read more about it in Dutch or French.
New apps (including FreeStyle LibreLink and Comunicare) have received the level 1 stamp from mHealthBelgium bringing the total number of apps to date at 11. See the full list here.
Not only cool startups win prices. In June the Belgian eHealth platform got a European price as well at the European Sharing & Reuse Conference in the category Shared IT services with the biggest impact on citizens or businesses. Read all about it here (NL).
Numerikare reported about the update of the Sumehr rules aiming at turning Sumehr (your Summarized Electronic Health Record) into a more trustworthy validated snapshot of your health. Read the French or Dutch article to find out more.
A special mention goes out to FarmaFlux who featured a special series in June on the use of digital technologies in healthcare including an interview with Lon Holtzer (NL/FR).
A team of the Brussels universities VUB-ULB has discovered a way to determine the genetic causes of rare diseases as reported by Numerikare (NL/FR). Another example of how AI can help to advance healthcare.
A new euregional test center for testing medical devices saw the light. The purpose of this test center is to facilitate the industry to test their medical devices in real life in an easier manner. Read more about it here (FR) or here (NL).
Could 3D printed drugs provide an answer to the shortage of prescription medicines? The Brussels ULB university is at least working on the technology as can be read in a Numerikare article (FR/NL)
BioVille, the Bio-incubator of the UHasselt, launches a brand new Digital Health House which will facilitate experimenting with the latest Digital Health technologies. Check out the press release here (NL).
Flemish newspaper De Morgen featured an article about the use of Virtual Reality in Belgian healthcare. Read the Dutch article here.
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