The e-health summer school held in the summer brought thirty foreign students of Health Management and Data Intelligence from Emlyon Business School to Estonia. The purpose of the international summer school held for the first time was to provide students with new knowledge and share Estonia's experience in healthcare innovation and digitalization. During the three-week period, students attended lectures, visited partners in the field of digital health and created innovative digital solutions as an independent team.
The summer school organized by the TalTech e-medicine center and the e-health master's program gave students an overview of the basics of e-health, healthcare financing and the basic principles of clinical decision support. The focus of the summer school was the sustainability of digital solutions and healthcare systems during the crisis. In addition, the students had to find solutions to three problem statements proposed by an Estonian healthcare organization.
According to Kadi Lubi, program manager of the e-health curriculum, the international summer school gave foreign students the opportunity to understand, with the help of Estonian experience, which aspects are important in the implementation of innovative technologies and which solutions could best support it. "The TalTech e-medicine center together with the e-health master's program is the largest e-health research and education center in Estonia. This allowed us to bring students together with various important experts in the field of healthcare, to offer them the opportunity to discuss with experienced experts to understand how to implement changes in healthcare and what they should consist of at the level of systems, organizations and individuals," Lubi added.
As a result of the cooperation, initial prototypes of business ideas and further implementation plans were born after three weeks. Student teams tried to find innovative solutions to increase participation in cervical cancer screening, reduce medical errors, ensure continuity of participation in clinical trials, and support health app developers. At the end of the summer school, participants of the summer school selected the best idea, which turned out to be the WeVee app. The solution supports clinical trial participants by trying to reduce the dropout rate through gamification and human data collection.
In addition to lectures and teamwork, the students had the opportunity to gain experience more about TalTech's digital health solutions and meet industry partners in Estonia. Students visited the Mektory XR Center to try their hand at various virtual and augmented reality technologies and their potential applications in healthcare. Foreign students also met with the Connected Health cluster network, which gathers companies in the health field, and visited the Health Founders health accelerator. From the public sector side, representatives of the Health Insurance Fund and the Health and Welfare Information Systems Center were met.