Highlights from TEF-Health Event at the Innovating Health Together Conference

The Testing and Experimentation Facility for Health AI and Robotics (TEF-Health) event in Porto, Portugal, gathered experts, regulators, and industry leaders in a debate about the current relevance and barriers of AI and medical robotics in Europe. Part of the Innovating Health Together (IHT) conference, the event took place on 15 October 2024 and was broadcast live on YouTube. It touched on a few different topics surrounding the challenges SMEs face, as well as the hurdles policymakers have faced when it comes to regulating AI.

“Europe is leading this initiative: it was the first to come up with regulation on AI.”, said Petra Ritter, TEF-Health coordinator, during her presentation.  

Other speakers highlighted the importance of regulation around AI, on the EU level, and the added value the TEF-Health instrument could bring. 

Tatjana Evas, Policy Officer at DG CONNECT, spoke about the EU’s new AI Act, which came into force in August 2024. Having a set of harmonised rules across Member States will ensure the trustworthy use of AI technology, she said. 

Saila Rinne, Head of Unit for eHealth, Well-Being and Ageing at DG CONNECT, explained how the European Health Data Space (EHDS) can help Europe make the most of that legislation: by making data more available for the development of AI solutions, helping advance the use of AI in healthcare.

TEF-Health can bring solutions to some of the challenges SMEs face, such as high innovation costs, certification delays or struggling with international scaling. 

By turning the wheel of validation and certification support, the project can help SMEs move faster and reduce the time it takes them to reach the European market. Discover more about the TEF-Health Open Call 1 for startups and SMEs.

EBRAINS is collaborating on this project that helps providers of AI technologies for the healthcare sector to bring their solutions to market faster by providing testing and validation services.

If you missed the livestream, you can watch the recording here.