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Mona Keijzer pays a working visit to Health RI
A working visit by Mona Keijzer, State Secretary for Economic Affairs and Climate, reinforced the good news on Monday 26 April that Health-RI will receive a subsidy of 69 million euros from the National Growth Fund.
State Secretary Mona Keijzer submitted the proposal to the Growth Fund on behalf of cooperating companies, knowledge institutions and governments. Health RI focuses on making patient data accessible for scientific research. Insights from collected data from all patients can improve healthcare and prevention. This also provides opportunities for innovation and business.
"The challenge is to bring together the fragmented data landscape of Dutch healthcare," says Hans van Leeuwen, Dean of ErasmusMC and Vice Chairman of the Board of Health-RI. "Health RI has done a lot of work in recent years. With the money from the Growth Fund, it can take the next steps."
The visit to Health-RI took place at ErasmusMC, the workplace of Wiro Niessen, CTO of Health-RI and professor of Biomedical Image Processing. "With top-level clinical research and data science, the Netherlands can take a leading role," he says. "By agreeing how we collect and retrieve data, we can learn a lot from it and improve healthcare." Applications of AI (artificial intelligence) play an important role in this. "Physicians with an eye for the patient, supported by technology."
State Secretary Keijzer is enthusiastic about the opportunities this presents for patients. "The corona crisis has once again proven the importance of sharing data," she said. But she also sees economic opportunities. "The Netherlands is the most innovative economy in Europe. The National Growth Fund supports initiatives that can contribute to this.