Tough choices in Brussels: Representing the European Commission, Sandra Gallina promised the executive will “do everything to honor the social contract” but said governments had to make difficult choices, defending the decision to cut the EU4Health program by a fifth to fund the war in Ukraine.
Are things really so bad? Pamela Rendi-Wagner, director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, said people were talking about the social contract as if it was a sick patient. “I don’t think [it] is really at that stage … we should be more proud of what we have achieved,” she said, in what moderator Nick Fahy called a “shocking note of optimism.”
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PEOPLE DON’T TRUST AI: Earlier in the day, the conference heard that artificial intelligence will only deliver benefits in health care if people trust the technology — and they’re not quite there yet, warned health experts.
Thanks but no thanks: AI is supposed to deliver major benefits for European competitiveness and efficiency, including in health. The technology could “completely revolutionize” the health sector, said Lucilla Sioli, director of the EU AI Office, a unit within DG CONNECT.
However, health professionals don’t trust it yet, she said. “During Covid, we were trying to distribute for free some tech that was AI-enabled to European hospitals,” she recalled. But even in a crisis, hospitals were reluctant to use it, she added.
Why the mistrust? One potential explanation might be that the evidence just isn’t there yet, as Natasha Azzopardi-Muscat, director of health policies and systems at WHO Europe, told reporters early on Tuesday morning. “We need to do better to be able to demonstrate that [AI] is really supporting them, supporting patients and liberating time,” she said.
