Digital transformation / health and care (communication) - Related Opinions

The liberal professions are already very successful in using digital and artificial intelligence applications for the benefit of their clients, and are at the forefront of their technological development. They must continue to be more closely enlisted in the development and validation process in future in order to ensure applications are usable in practice and effective. The liberal professions need to update the content of training in order to ensure their own IT and digital skills and those of their employees are of the highest possible quality standard. The creation of new professions made possible by digitalisation should be encouraged, on the basis of the criteria and principles set out in the Rome Manifesto.

The annual Union work programme for European standardisation for 2020 identifies priorities for European standardisation. The EESC agrees with the Commission that standardisation is crucial to the strategy for the single market and that it should be constantly updated. Moreover, the EESC considers that there is an urgent need to modernise the European standardisation system to meet global challenges with an innovative process of cooperation.

The EESC agrees that the aim of sustainable cooperation on health technology assessment (HTA) at EU level is to ensure that all the EU countries can benefit from efficiency gains, thus maximising added value; and believes that the proposal should benefit SMEs, as well as social economy enterprises operating in the sector, by reducing the current administrative burden and compliance costs linked to submissions of multiple dossiers to meet different national HTA requirements.