The “Digital” did not stop 22 countries from wanting to meet face to face in Vienna’s Sutherland Hall to discuss opportunities and challenges that digital tools present. We believe these discussions are essential in preparing the future of the therapeutic education of the diabetes patients.

The following questions were addressed:

Are we all connected?
Connectivity and data collection: what are the benefits for the patient and for the health care system in general. Discussed using the example of Sweden.
The mobile phone, a tool that actually helps fight the diabetes “epidemic” on a state level. Projects like « Be He@lthy, be mobile » launched by The World Health Organization in partnership with the « International Telecommunication Union » were discussed.
Demonstration of how the “Universal Doctor” multilingual digital tool helps an English doctor communicates with a Polish patient.
We are convinced that Digital Tools are not used enough. Even though these last years many pilot projects were launched, the full potential of the “Digital” in patient education is still to be explored. To discuss this potential and propose solutions we organized a Round Table and we gathered representatives of the Insurance sector, Pharmaceutical industry, Telecommunications, mobile applications developers as well as Healthcare professionals and representatives of Patient Associations.

Bringing together all these actors from different sectors was extremely important: the symposium was the first step in creating concrete collaborative projects around “digital therapeutic education” of the diabetes patients.