EU4Digital last week held a virtual event on advanced analytics usage in medical images, the first in a series of planned eHealth collaboration events this year, bringing together eHealth Network members from all six Eastern partner countries.

The meeting on 5 March began with an update from the EU4Digital eHealth stream leader on the status of eHealth activities and upcoming events for 2021. The EU4Digital team also presented the results of the recent eHealth social medial campaign, which reached more than 15 million people through a series of stories promoting developments in eHealth.

In the next part of the event, Dr. Peter Bogatencov from RENAM, the Moldovan national research and education network (NREN), introduced the work done by the ‘EU4Digital: Connecting Research and Education Communities (EaPConnect)’ project, highlighting areas that could benefit the eHealth Network, such as enhanced connectivity with dedicated infrastructure supporting secure, reliable and cost-effective collaboration between healthcare professionals.

Two presentations then showcased work supported by EaPConnect in Moldova and Belarus.

Mr. Alexandr Golubev from RENAM in Moldova spoke about NREN infrastructure support for the DICOM Network application, designed to handle the generation, storage and usage of medical images. The eHealth Network has been inspired by the possibilities that Mr. Golubev’s work can bring to healthcare, including remote working opportunities, cost savings and innovative COVID-19 solutions. At present, the DICOM Network connects five hospitals in Chisinau, providing secure online access to medical examinations and helping doctors from medical institutions in qualitative medical management. Interest in expanding similar work to other countries has been expressed.

Finally, Dr. Vassili Kovalev, from the United Institute of Informatics Problems at the Belarus National Academy of Sciences, spoke about AI-based computational web services on medical image analysis. Dr. Kovalev has introduced his exceptional work experience in the medical image analysis area: his current projects and future plans in Deep Learning and medical image analysis. He revealed that some countries in the EaP region already work closely with Belarus in medical image analysis and other countries have been encouraged to network in the future.

Research and educational networking association of Moldova – www.renam.md​

Biomedical image analysis group – https://image.org.by/

EaP connect – https://eapconnect.eu/