Centre d'Excellence Europe Capitole

Eu Health policy and digital transformation of care : What issues for which competence ? by Nathalie De GROVE-VALDEYRON
Desaps chair  P. 39
Health is an area where digital-related technological innovations are expected to play a vital role in a context where all national health systems face common challenges (aging of the population, rising chronic diseases, shortage of health profesionals, etc.). These technologies, presented as being able to contribute to cost control and to the organization and delivery of health services and care more adapted to the needs of patients, can also potentially improve the quality of life of millions of citizens. This contribution sets out the strategy chosen by the European Union to promote the development of e-health and the actions considered to help States meet the challenges of the latest tehnologies and the change they bring about.

Competence and ambivalence of the European Union in the area of public health.
By Marc Blanquet Jean Monnet Chair p.12

The initial logic behind the Treaty of Rome was to limit the integration plan to economic activities and to allow the Member Contries to make their sovereign activities prevail over such integration. Both aspects led presumably to prohibiting the Community from investing the field of public health.
Yet it seems that today, health has become one of the priorities of the European Union.
The European public health competence is however marked by ambivalence in that it has developed indirectly or incidentally; it is also so because it only aims at completing the first action that remains that of Member Countries, and that this is the only area that the Lisbon Treaty has torn between a support competence status and a shared competence status. Ambivalence also characterizes the health action of the Union because of the continued importance of the economic dimension, whether it is a concern for the proper functioning of the European market or a concern for the competitivesness of European industry; however, this economic dimension does not necessarily conflict with real progress for European patients.