The Government of Cantabria will have 14 million euros to undertake projects related to digital health. This financing, coming from different European calls, must be executed in the next two years. The high specialization of the ICT companies in the region, their flexibility when forming consortia and the possibility of offering all the services of the sector’s value chain make the members of the Tera Cluster the best possible allies so that the value addition of this type of initiatives remains in the business fabric of the region.

An approach that is also shared by the Health Minister of the regional Executive. “This is a unique opportunity and we need the collaboration of the industry because we cannot undertake it alone,” said César Pascual at the opening of the “Digital Health in the context of the Digital Agenda of Cantabria” conference. Cooperation with the industry through European Funds.” An informative event, organized jointly by the Ministry of Health and the Tera Cluster, in which the main lines of work that will guide the Government’s action in this matter in the short and medium term were presented.

Before almost a hundred representatives of the sector and with more than a third of Tera’s associates in the auditorium, Pascual advocated for cooperation that goes beyond the concept of traditional bidding and is committed to a model in which Administration and the productive fabric behave as technology partners. “We do not want contractors, but partners to accompany us on this exciting journey we have towards digital transformation,” said the counselor. A type of relationship with which the Tera Cluster companies are familiar and in which they can contribute efficiency both due to their knowledge of the administrative procedure and their technological capabilities.

The bulk of the available funds comes from Component 18 of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, which proposes the ‘Renewal and expansion of the capacities of the National Health System’. Up to 8 of the 14 million announced by the counselor are linked to this section, whose main purpose is to have a more robust, flexible and resilient health model.

In this sense, the implementation of a virtual care center is revealed as one of the key elements to develop a patient-centered health policy. “This technological commitment must cover the main needs that healthcare will have in the medium term,” Pascual explained. “A virtual assistance center will allow us to offer better benefits and make up for the absence of professionals that the sector already suffers from and that will increase in the coming years,” concluded the counselor.
The role that new technologies will play in the sustainability of the current health system was a constant during all the interventions of the day. With an increasingly aging population and the challenge posed by the lack of professionals in certain specialties, Cantabria must make the most of the available funds. “It would be a failure to have the financing and not have managed to create tools that integrate into our system and last over time,” said Óscar Fernández Torre.

Among other aspects, the general director of Planning, Planning, Knowledge Management and Digital Health indicated that the funds will be allocated mainly to the personalization of health care. “We have the obligation to really transform the healthcare model and make it more sustainable,” he added.

The event concluded with the intervention of Rocío Montalbán, who detailed the different digitalization programs that are underway and the perspectives that exist in the future. “We are in an exciting and privileged situation, in which three aspects come together: leadership and drive; digital health strategy with clear objectives and priorities; and, above all, there is financing,” said the deputy director of Digital Health.

Montalbán’s talk outlined the principles, values, objectives and strategic lines of the SNS Digital Health Strategy from which specific actions are then developed. In that sense, she detailed programs and actions related to three large blocks such as the promotion of digital health services, interoperability and data management, with exploitation and analytics as the main tools.