Blog of the GRITS Research Group. Next-generation networks for the Internet of the future, Fog Computing and the Internet of things to implement custom designs in hybrid cybersecurity clouds, in large-scale storage systems and long-distance communications.

25 June 2019 | Posted by laura.blanco

La Salle - URL will lead the European ATHIKA project

The disruption of the technology in different traditional sectors is part of this new era, the Digital Transformation Era. In this way, a digital revolution is undergoing in environments like Industry or Health, changing its concept to Industry 4.0 or eHealth, where the application of new technology is the key point of the change.

Being the eHealth sector more critical because it is related to people, from the privacy of its data to the health of the own patient, there is a need of improving the interaction between the involved parties. The development and implementation of novel and advanced healthcare systems based on ICT require a greater interaction between healthcare professionals and patients, as well as technological experts, in order to manage data, information and knowledge to provide higher value in the provision of health services, ruling out what is harmful, untested, or which can be counterproductive in relation to human rights. Available health data is becoming massive, comes from uncontrolled environments and needs to be handled under proper ethical criteria to respect fundamental human rights.

There is a lack of technologic experts and engineers that know well the specific ethical implications of the healthcare applications. Moreover, many healthcare centres’ managers are reluctant to all the changes that the technologic development implies. Engineering education is still focused on how to develop and implement new technologies, neglecting the social and environmental implications of them.

The European ATHIKA (Advanced Training in Health Innovation Knowledge Alliance – No. 601106-EPP-1-2018-1-ES-EPPKA-KA) project was born with the purpose of bringing a humanistic approach to the engineering education while addressing the most important new research in the world of AI and IoT linked to Healthcare. We are going to do it by building a set of advanced training programs for, involving academia, health public administration, SMEs, startups and entrepreneurs, and health business consultants. The variety of profiles of ATHIKA partners will provide a complete perspective of the sector and will enable the identification of the more urgent challenges in the health sector.

We are going to guide and coach students during the program and afterwards in a competition in which the students from different HEIs and backgrounds will be collaborating in the development of novel technical and ethical-compliance solutions. ATHIKA project will combine the training and competition activities with a set of 3 workshops (on IoT, AI/Data Analytics, and Ethics, Security & Governance) during 2020. A final symposium (2021) will be held to show the results of the project and the exchange of knowledge and the lessons learnt between the partners, the students and external health sector stakeholders all across Europe.

However, before we start working on the courses, it is necessary to identify the eHealth challenges. Because of this, we are preparing a Symposium for the morning of June, 27th, in Barcelona (Dr. Eduard Salvany Building) where we are going to present the project and discuss the challenges proposed by experts from the involved parts of the health sector. Join us and propose your challenge!

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