Catalonia explains in Sweden how to drive innovation in active and healthy ageing along with other European regions

* Photography: CORAL.

The vice-president of the European Commission and commissary for the Digital Agenda, Neelie Kroes, welcomed those attending the parallel session at the AAL Forum 2013 with a video message. Kroes assured that “the problem is not to find innovation around Europe, but to know how to use it and make good use of it” and stressed the decisive role of the regions and European networks in defining and implementing policies and strategies in the area of active and healthy ageing. In fact, the AAL Joint Programme is an important pillar of the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing (EIP AHA), developed by the European Commission.

The talk show featured senior politicians and people responsible for innovation and ICT from the regions of Noord-Brabant (Holland), Zealand (Denmark), Halland and Norrbotten (Sweden), Scotland (United Kingdom), Southern Denmark and Limousin (France), in addition to Catalonia. The discussion revolved around involvement on the regional level and the essential role of the governments and local innovation clusters in carrying out and adapting intelligent solutions to enable independent life and integral attention. Throughout the session, short videos were screened from each of the guest regions to show the European success cases designed to improve well-being in old age.

As for the presentation from Catalonia, Dr. Francesc Garcia Cuyàs intervened in a video in which he presented the Health Department’s Health Plan 2011-2015, which contemplates strategies in eHealth and ICT and exposes Catalonia’s active participation in networks and initiatives of the European Commission and the challenges and future opportunities for healthcare in the territory. “We are working on the Smart Health Ecosystem Catalunya and the Reference Site in order to combine efforts to work for Europe”, the Director of the Fundació TicSalut explained.

“Europe must deal with the large scale application of innovation in health and social care”, Agneta Granström, councillor of the Norrbotten region (Sweden) and president of the e-he@lth network of the Assembly of Regions of Europe insisted during the session. “Now we only have oases of innovation in Europe”, Granström added. The participants in the talk show agreed that “it is necessary to find the way to multiply the actions being carried out”.

The event allowed the participants to go back to their regions with new ideas to start up. The session, parallel to the AAL Forum 2013, was joint organised by the Community of Regions for Assisted Living (CORAL), the European Regional and Local Health Authorities (EUREGHA), the ENGAGED learning community and the Assembly of European Regions (AER), whose members include eleven regions recognised as Reference Sites by the European Commission. In fact Catalonia has been awarded the maximum recognition, with three stars.

Further information

• Playlist on YouTube of the videos screened during the Talk Show.
• Talk show with regional politicians at the AAL Forum 2013 in Sweden. Coral (Regional Policies for Active and Healthy Ageing), 1 October 2013 [access: 7 October 2013]. Available at: http://www.coral-europe.eu/…
• AAL Forum, annual platform for increasing the European community of Ambient Assisted Living: http://www.aalforum.eu/