Key challenges in the digital transformation of healthcare and pharmaceuticals—and how these can be addressed—were discussed by experts during an event organised by the European Digital Innovation Hub Health Hub.
On 16 February, at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, the Hub brought together companies and organisations from across the sector. Industry representatives presented both the challenges and the opportunities shaping the future of digital health in Greece.
“The real challenge for private healthcare is digital readiness,” noted Lygeri Zournatzi, Administrative Director of HOSPITALity General Clinic, who took part in the roundtable discussion titled “The Health Hub ecosystem in action.”
She highlighted the “need to train staff and integrate digital solutions and processes that are already available.”
“Digital transformation is a strategic shift that affects our organisational culture, our workflows and the way decisions are made,” she explained.
The discussion also addressed the growing need for remote support for patients with chronic conditions. According to Suzana Ioakeimidou, Clinical and Molecular Dietitian specialising in Public Health, “patients—and often members of their families—frequently have to travel in order to receive the care they need. This creates additional costs and challenges related to transportation and the time required from caregivers.”
In her view, “it is essential to develop tools that provide multi-level medical care for patients who need support from professionals across different healthcare specialties, which are not always easily available in regional areas.”
Innovative SMEs and startups bring forward new solutions
The discussion also featured Ioannis Petropoulos, founder of TeleNurse Plus, a platform that integrates artificial intelligence and offers services such as 24-hour telemedicine, remote cardiology monitoring, video consultations and automated analysis of medical data, while complying with data protection standards required by hospitals and insurance providers.
George Varitis, co-founder of WellBerry, explained that “we often think about healthcare in a linear way—from prevention to diagnosis and then treatment. Most services provided by companies in the healthcare sector stop at the treatment stage.”
According to him, “this is where WellBerry comes in—to connect patient monitoring with the other stages of care.”
WellBerry provides a digital platform that acts as a personal health assistant, offering services such as personalised prevention using artificial intelligence and support for private healthcare centres to improve both the quality and the volume of preventive examinations.
Digital transformation of pharmacies and public health
Aris Vrahatis, Assistant Professor at the Department of Informatics at the Ionian University, presented case studies showing how AI agents can support the healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors.
“We presented eight applications developed by our laboratory—the Bioinformatics and Human Electrophysiology Lab—which can easily be adapted to any pharmacy,” he explained.
Leonidas Papaioannou, Director of Economic Documentation and Costing at the Greek DRG Institute, presented digital transformation tools designed for hospitals. His presentation focused on the DRG Support platform, which he described as “a tool that enables better and more evidence-based decision-making using data collected through the DRG system.”
The DRG system categorises hospital patients into groups based on diagnosis, severity and resource use, enabling more efficient costing and reimbursement of healthcare services.
During the event, Health Hub also presented its training programme titled “Integrating Artificial Intelligence and Innovative Technologies into Pharmaceutical Science and Practice.”
Ilias Katsogiannis, pharmacist and PhD candidate at the Democritus University of Thrace, explained that “the main challenge in training community pharmacists is time management. Information and knowledge become outdated much faster than they used to, while pharmacists are already dealing with demanding daily responsibilities.”
According to him, the programme “demonstrates what can be achieved through asynchronous learning and how important it is for pharmacists to access new knowledge at their own pace.”
Chryssi Vitsilaki, Professor Emerita at the University of the Aegean and scientific coordinator of the programme, added: “Our goal is to engage with organisations that can support digital health and pharmacy innovation at different levels so that we can move one step forward.”
Health Hub services through the perspective of its partners
Maria Pournari, Operations Manager of Health Hub, presented the Hub’s free digital transformation services.
Participants also shared their experiences collaborating with the Hub.
Zournatzi noted that “for HOSPITALity, the most valuable aspect is not only the individual technological solutions, but also the evaluation framework, the access to expertise and the collaborations that emerge through Health Hub.”
Ioakeimidou emphasised that her collaboration with the Hub provided “access to networking opportunities and development tools,” adding that she has received “substantial support and real guidance” for initiatives she considered particularly challenging.
According to Varitis, “for startups and SMEs in the healthcare sector, communication with investors is just as important as communication with patients. Health Hub helped WellBerry significantly in this area through participation in European projects.”
Petropoulos also noted that for TeleNurse Plus, collaboration with the Hub “creates a bridge with the academic community and strengthens the company’s digital readiness.”
Strategic partnership with the Association of Medical and Biotechnological Products
The event also featured Thanasis Akalestos, Executive Director of the Association of Medical and Biotechnological Products, which recently signed a memorandum of cooperation with Health Hub.
As he explained, “the idea of collaborating with Health Hub first emerged when we visited JOIST Innovation Park, where the Hub is based. Our goal was to connect our members with the innovation ecosystem of the Park and the Hub and create meaningful collaboration.”
Several member companies of the Association have already begun assessing their digital maturity with the support of Health Hub.
“It will be interesting to see the digital maturity of the environment in which we operate and how we fit within it,” he added, also highlighting the importance of attracting multinational companies “to explore whether this digital ecosystem presents attractive investment opportunities.”