For health data enthusiasts, all roads led to Porto, Portugal on 17-18 November 2022 for the “Health Data Forum 2022 – Health Data Quality: a Dynamic Complexity”. This is the first-ever conference focused entirely on health data quality. More than 200 participants either physically travelled to the Faculty of Medicine of Porto University or joined online for the Global Hybrid Summit.
The attendees came from different parts of Europe and the world, some even hailing from South America. On Thursday morning, in the auditorium of the Faculty of Medicine of Porto University, abuzz with the energy of attendees and speakers, the conference was formally opened by organising and programme committee members Paul Nunesdea (Health Data Forum), Prof. Altamiro Costa Pereira (Dean, Porto University Medical School), Ricardo Jardim Gonçalves (Director, Uninova), Geert Thienpont (Managing Director, i~HD) and Jens Declerck (Data Quality Manager, i~HD).
The two-day programme included a nice balance of plenary and break-out sessions in which international thought leaders presented the latest developments in health data. Their talks underlined the vision of i~HD, that health data quality is indeed a dynamic complexity.
The break-out sessions centred on the large number of topics that the Quality of Health Data covers and have a huge impact on Quality, such as the European Health Data Space (EHDS), Artificial Intelligence and Information Governance, interoperability standards and ICT systems.
On the second day, six parallel sessions gave the floor to all stakeholders to discuss the question that runs through everyone’s mind, “What is in it for me?”. Rapporteurs took notes of the parallel sessions. These were then collated as input for the calls-to-action presented by Dipak Kalra.
In the end, a Grand Debate and the calls-to-action session concluded the two-day conference, moderated by Mats Sundgren (Senior Industry Scientific Director, i~HD). The action points are being compiled for the Porto Declaration on Health Data Quality. This declaration contains several practical action points based on the previous sessions, coming from all stakeholders and for all stakeholders within the healthcare ecosystem. The Porto Declaration and a more detailed report on the conference will be released soon.
A day before the conference, a group of European experts gave a pre-conference tutorial on health data quality to give an overview of the current trends in health data in the European Union.
i~HD thanks all the participants who registered, listened and delivered presentations, as well as its Portuguese partners Health Data Forum, the Faculty of Medicine of Porto University and MEDCIDS.
