On November 9th, our Slovenian ecosystem participated in the face-to-face Annual Meeting of the Slovenian Medical Informatics Association with over 120 attendees in attendance for their presentation. The presentation brought forward interesting commentary regarding the current sector beliefs in Slovenia on the future of digitalization of patient information leaflets, and many involved participants agreed that in order to do so on a national level, next steps for Slovenia would include a scaling of resources, mostly for business development and readiness assessments of key stakeholders and later for implementation.

Next, on November 16th, our Argentinian and Spanish ecosystems partnered together to host a meaningful webinar focused on the power of information and communication in healthcare, which brought in over 50 online participants to the live session, and has garnered over 100 views on YouTube since its debut. Overall, the webinar successfully conveyed valuable insights on the transformative impact of information in healthcare and attendees gained increased awareness of personalized information’s significance in improving treatment adherence and patient outcomes, while also appreciating the role of technology and collaboration in revolutionizing the healthcare industry. The session encouraged greater collaboration among healthcare stakeholders, and introduced the Gravitate Health project (thanks to the support of project members, Cecilia Vera and Evinn Drusys), fostering interest in innovative solutions for reliable and personalized medical information to enhance patient care. An article is available here in Spanish, as well as the video recording of the webinar.

Following this, our Kenyan ecosystem hosted an immensely successful webinar on empowering patients through digital health information as an official side event of the International Conference on Public Health in Africa (CPHIA). Project Coordinator, Dr. Anne Moen, was included in a diverse panel which convened 94 attending participants from various sectors including policy, (digital) health care, and patient organizations.

The session’s outcomes involved fostering commitments to boost public health investments in Africa, particularly through the use of digital health solutions. Participants were anticipated to recognize the importance of effectively utilizing digital health tools for improved public health outcomes and to contribute to bridging the gap between healthcare infrastructure and patient empowerment by identifying strategic areas for investment in digital health and informatics in the African context.

Finally, our Australian ecosystem conducted part 1 of 2 events by hosting an intimate gathering of a small, multi-stakeholder group of selected members from industry, the pharmacy profession, academia and consumer groups on December 12th for a virtual roundtable discussion. The topic for this discussion was consumer-focused digital health & product information/consumer medicines information. The session was an opportunity to informally share expertise and insights in exploring the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities & challenges in Australia’s digital health information landscape and initiatives, and will tee up an upcoming seminar to be hosted in January focused on topic of creating digital product information and consumer medicines information that is consumer focused through co-design. This roundtable session was perceived positively by the organizers and participants and key takeaways from the engaging discussion emphasized the importance of co-design that involves the end users, having appropriate systems in place, and providing support to facilitate uptake of such technologies.

The ecosystems continue to express their excitement to be involved in co-creation aspects of the Gravitate Health project, and the accumulated efforts of their external events have been highly impactful for overall project dissemination. We thank our ecosystems for their continued collaboration and support on our mission to empower and equip Europeans (and beyond) with health information for active personal health management and adherence to treatment.

2023 has now passed, but that doesn’t mean that the roster of meaningful events has come to an end! Stay tuned on our social media channels in the weeks to come for more information regarding upcoming ecosystem-hosted events in collaboration with Gravitate Health from our Australian, Canadian, and Finnish partners in 2024!