At the COCIR Annual General Assembly in Brussels this year, we decided to hold an open session, focusing on Value-based Healthcare. This reflected last year’s decision to dedicate resources through a newly-created Focus Group at COCIR on this important topic. Our objective is to both gather evidence and further articulate the added value of COCIR’s industry sectors, such as medical imaging, radiotherapy and Digital Health.

We used the opportunity of this open session to invite leading Scientific Societies to contribute. These included ICHOM (International Consortium for Health Outcomes Measurement) as well as ESR and ESTRO, with whom we already enjoy well-established partnerships.

Dr Rishi Hazarika MBBS, BSc, MSc, Vice President, Global Implementation and Courses, explained the ‘ICHOM Standard Set for Breast Cancer and How to define and measure the patient outcomes’, while Prof. Lorenzo Derchi, current ESR 2nd Vice President and responsible for steering ESR efforts on value-based imaging described the ‘Value-based diagnostic imaging: the right exam’. In addition, ESTRO President, Prof. Yolande Lievens articulated critical elements of ‘Innovation in radiotherapy and how to prove its value for money’.

The session opened with an address on importance of value-based healthcare to our sectors and closed on the critical value of Digital Health.

Besides these exciting activities and understandably, there has also been considerable attention at the start of the year on other activities where COCIR remains very active.

At the beginning the year, we were pleased to launch our dedicated COCIR Digital Health Blog, which will address a dedicated theme each month. In February, marking the Mobile World Congress, we shone a spotlight on the mHealth revolution, which at last will see mobile health solutions transforming health and care delivery.

In addition, as with every year, COCIR participated in The European Congress of Radiology. We shared the industry views during a session on ultrasound. As a dedicated contributor and supporter of the EuroSafe Imaging Initiative, we published a poster  setting out the industry’s continuous commitments on Dose Optimisation in Breast Imaging.  During the same week, we also launched an infographic based on the COCIR Medical Imaging Equipment Age Profile & Density report (2016 Edition). This warns on the risk posed by increasing levels of obsolescence in imaging equipment in various countries.
We were also pleased to sign a partnership agreement with the European Federation of Organisations for Medical Physics (EFOMP) with a commitment to advancing the best use of medical technology involving ionizing radiation for the betterment of healthcare (read the Memorandum of Understanding to find out more).

Finally, at an international level and through DITTA, we organised a workshop on Medical Device Single Audit Program (MDSAP) during the International Medical Device Regulators Forum (IMDRF) meetings in Vancouver. In the coming months, we also plan to contribute to the forthcoming WHO Global Forum on Medical Devices.

More news to follow in an exciting year!