Rome, 14 May. (beraking latest news Health) – From tomorrow until May 18, over 2 thousand members of the Italian Association of Clinical Engineers (Aiic) will gather in Rome for their 24th national conference, which will have as its theme ‘Chronicity, territory, proximity: let’s build the future together digital ecosystem’. A title that suggests the need to think in a new way in terms of an ‘interconnected system’ across the entire panorama of healthcare technologies. A system that must also have characteristics of ethics and social responsibility. Also for this reason, as the first gesture of its annual event, the AIIC Board of Directors will be present tomorrow 15 May in the Vatican at the audience of Pope Francis, at which he will present his commitment to the charitable works and mission of the Church in the healthcare sector.
A large hospital – explains a note – has on average between 20 and 30 thousand small or large equipment solutions and, behind these technologies which ensure, with the intervention of healthcare workers, from doctors to nurses, the health of all population, there are (also) clinical engineers, experts in the technology that cures. “The whole country and the whole healthcare sector with its infinite junctions – states Umberto Nocco, president of AIIC – expects from technological solutions and innovations an effective contribution in terms of improvement of services, organizational quality, reduction of those critical issues represented by waiting lists, from the inequality of healthcare responses in the area or from the lack of interoperability of data. But, if this expectation is logical, it is also true that it is not possible to imagine that the National Health Service as a whole will move forward in no particular order. offering disconnected and probably partial answers. Hence the need for what we have defined as a digital ecosystem that is a place of reference, governance and connection of the change underway”.
In this regard, Lorenzo Leogrande, president of the conference, adds: “By carefully observing the contents of the discussion on the measures and investments envisaged in the Pnrr for healthcare, it is possible to quickly grasp today’s strategic areas on which to focus attention and intervene to a re-founded and strengthened NHS: chronicity, territory and proximity. Apparently disjointed areas and values - he continues – but which together focus on very differentiated and essential challenges on which the future of national healthcare depends healthcare experts, the AIIC conference is one of the most anticipated moments of the year, because our approach to healthcare technologies is always concrete, never banal or mythologizing”.
An eagerly awaited moment which – after the training courses on the 15th and the first sessions on the morning of the 16th – formally opens with the institutional session scheduled for the afternoon of May 16th to discuss the ‘ecosystem’ from multiple points of view, in which participants will be: among others: Filippo Anelli, president of Fnomceo; Americo Cicchetti, Ministry of Health; Michele Perrini, president of the National Council of Engineers; Fernanda Gellona, general director of Confindustria DM; Enrica Porcari, Cern; Giulio Siccardi, Agenas; Paolo Ferdinando Giuseppe Donzelli, Digital Transformation department; Anselmo Campagna, technical coordinator of the Health Commission, Conference of the Regions. Ilaria Cinelli, biomedical engineer member of the Aerospace Medical Association, and Bebe Vio, in the company of Emanuele Lambertini, representing the art4sport Foundation, will also make their contribution to the inauguration.
“On this year’s agenda – lists Stefano Bergamasco, coordinator of the scientific committee of the conference – there are over 50 sessions, to which are added 11 training courses. In this panorama rich in content, I would like to suggest some key themes that occur in numerous sessions of the program: digital health and telemedicine, which also includes the launch of a specific Manifesto (17 May) shared with the Italian Telemedicine Society and other scientific-professional entities; technologies in emergency contexts, a double session (in the morning of May 16th), which will delve into the management of healthcare equipment in extreme situations (catastrophes, epidemics, conflicts) in collaboration with the forces of the Air Force, Navy, Army and NATO”.
And again “Artificial intelligence in healthcare (18 May) – continues Bergamasco – which will be responsible for offering an examination of the most recent applications in favor of patients and healthcare structures; Hospital of the future (16 May), where we will discuss architects, urban planners, planners and plant designers to create a new culture of design; biomedical technologies and green healthcare (17 May), to understand how the promotion of a sustainable environment also involves a new look at the entire healthcare sector; Cybersecurity, privacy and security (17 May), to share methods and projects in the field of data processing, network governance and protection of health records; home technologies and patients (18 May), where we will continue the already existing comparison between clinical engineers, citizens and their associations on the shared and safe management of technologies in the homes of patients with chronic, oncological and haematological pathologies”.
The members of the AIIC Board of Directors contributed to the implementation of the program: Gianluca Giaconia, Giovanni Poggialini, Giulio Iachetti, Leo Traldi, Emilio Chiarolla, Amedeo Lanzani, Pasquale Garofalo, Andrea Fisher, Francesco Pezzatini and Carmelo Minniti.
The conference – 4 particularly intense days with the presence of professionals from various healthcare fields, institutions, healthcare agencies, national and international scientific societies, academics, students and postgraduates in clinical and biomedical engineering, regional and local structures, the world of production and representatives of media – will also see the now traditional presentation of the Aiic Awards (prizes for the best abstracts and multidisciplinary projects presented and selected by a qualified jury chaired by Professor Francesco Saverio Mennini) and the Innovation Award (awarded by Aiic to the technological solutions with the greatest impact in the field of biomedical engineering, open to manufacturing companies and retailers of electromedical technologies and medical devices).