One year after its public presentation last June at the European Commission's office in Barcelona, the UOC eHealth Center has raised considerable expectations in both the Spanish and international health ecosystems. In this interview, its executive president, Marta Aymerich – who is also the UOC's Vice President for Strategic Planning and Research – reviews and explains the challenges and projects that will be undertaken in the near future.
How did the eHealth Center come about?
Like other interdisciplinary initiatives, a working group developed the early drafts of the project, which was then refined within the cross-functional initiatives incubator run by the Office of the Vice President's Strategic Planning Office. The involvement of the Faculties of Health Sciences, Psychology and Education Sciences, and Computer Science, Multimedia and Telecommunications has been vital. A lot of people worked very hard (including a weekend "retreat") to build the project that today is now a reality.
What does the eHealth Center represent for the UOC?
It is one more step toward becoming a research university. The UOC came into being in the 1994/95 academic year as a teaching university. In the year 2000, the University created its first research institute: the IN3 (Internet Interdisciplinary Institute). Nine years later, in 2009, a second centre was created: the eLearn Center. In 2017, we created the eHealth Center with the goal of increasing academic contribution to the field of e-health, which is currently more consolidated in the entrepreneurial sector.
We have used the experience gained in putting the student at the centre of learning to create a centre that puts the citizen-patient at the centre of the health system, with the objective of improving the population's health. We are convinced that the UOC has made a significant contribution to society. A significant percentage of our 60,000 graduates would not have been able to pursue their studies without the UOC.
“Without good management, too much success can be bad”
What is your impression of this first year? Can you list some of the successes and pending challenges?
On an internal level, we have been able to generate widespread commitment to eHealth within the UOC. When we held an internal event to promote eHealth research, professionals from all of the UOC's faculties and centres took part, contributing some very interesting ideas; some of these will become specific projects. We also have a number of funded projects, published papers and postdoctoral stays both at the UOC and other institutions. On an external level, the success of the 1st International Research Conference on eHealth & eWell-being was quite overwhelming. It has laid the foundations for a very promising second conference, which will be held in two years' time.
The fact that we have got off to such a good start has been possible thanks to the effort of a lot of dedicated people. But there is a risk that these high expectations may not be met because we cannot respond to all the requests for collaboration. Without good management, too much success can be bad. If we had access to unlimited funding, we could create a macro-centre but our society is not investing that kind of money in knowledge. It's true that we have an internal commitment for our initial funding (€1.5 M for the first three years) and the clear support of the UOC's governing bodies. Furthermore, the Advisory Board is interdisciplinary. It's fantastic to work with so much intelligence, but we will need time to gather enough external resources to grow.
Where do these external collaboration requests come from?
Apart from requests from universities, we have had offers from all sorts of organizations, which confirms our idea that the eHealth Center is interdisciplinary and cross-functional. We have been contacted by government agencies, research groups, public and private hospitals, occupational health mutual societies, patient associations, pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, the odd embassy… The requests are very wide ranging, from working on research to find out what the citizen's profile is with respect to e-health, to finding out which apps are good for prescribing to patients, or how we can help in health promotion efforts... It's as if we had put up a door and lots of organizations are knocking at it to come in. It’s very encouraging.
In addition, precisely because the eHealth Center exists, the International Association of Universities (IAU) has asked the UOC to lead the worldwide working group on the United Nations 2030 Agenda's Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number 3 (out of the 17 Goals that were set), which is to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.
The Faculty of Health Sciences has been designated as a World Health Organization (WHO) collaborating centre in eHealth. How has this been achieved and what does it mean for you?
A collaborating centre works with WHO toward achieving certain objectives and ensures smooth cooperation in administrative and logistics matters. Working with WHO gives much more visibility to our work. We had already been working for some years with WHO in Latin America (PAHO), networking with centres and universities, and advising on the implementation and assessment of eHealth experiences. Another area in which we have been working for some years with WHO is that of neglected tropical diseases such as cutaneous leishmaniasis, Buruli's ulcer, yaws, etc., which are precisely one of the milestones of the 2030 Agenda SDG 3. The UOC's role is to close the gap between what we know from research and what we do in clinical and public health practice (the so-called "know-do gap"). To take knowledge about these diseases to the professionals so that more patients can be cured.
The fact that our collaboration with WHO is in the domain of e-heath (and not with a group of diseases like some other collaborating centres) gives us the chance to work on a broad spectrum of tasks.
This October will mark the launch of the University Master's Degree in eHealth, the first official master's degree in this subject. Who might be interested in taking it?
The master's degree targets any professional who works with health. Of course, like most of the UOC's qualifications, it can also be taken for personal growth. The degree covers all areas of eHealth: from how ICTs can help increase engagement with health and the level of knowledge, to how they can be used by health professionals to improve people's health; how data science plays an essential role in health by knowing more about health and illness, personalizing treatments, reducing economic and time costs, etc. The master's degree's approach is salutogenic, that is, we focus on maintaining health and not just on reducing illness. This is also the approach applied by the eHealth Center.
You are planning to launch other interesting services soon…
Yes, we will soon be starting an eHealth advisory service for companies and organizations. And at the beginning of next year, we plan to launch an online psychological support service. In a first phase, the service will be offered to the UOC's professionals and Alumni Premium members and later it will be opened to the rest of the UOC community (students and course instructors).
What contributions does the eHealth Center wish to make to society?
Broadly speaking, we want to help society change the health paradigm: instead of focusing on disease, we want citizens to take ownership of their health. We want them to have a more deliberative – and less paternalistic – relationship with health professionals. Health professionals and centres are necessary but they are not enough on their own. As in education, the resources you have access to and your peers are very important in health. And also the critical ability to interpret all types of resources: apps, articles, patient forums, etc. We want citizens to be able to make their own decisions about their health, as they are already doing in economics, education, politics… In short: we want to democratize health. It's part of the UOC's DNA.