Day 1 - 23 November 2022
8:30 - 9:00 | Welcome and Networking/Registering |
9:00 - 10:00 | Opening Ceremony & Keynote Speech
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10:00 - 11:00 | Plenary 1 - Asia-Pacific and Personalised Medicine: Predictive, Preventive, Participatory, Personalised, and Pre-emptive (5Ps) Health Systems in Asia-Pacific This session looks at genomic medicine and its various applications within the Asia-Pacific Health Systems. The terminology currently used needs to be standardised in the AP region so that we all are talking about the same health technologies and applications. We now have innovative health technologies at our disposal that can help our health systems to become predictive, preventative, participatory, personalised, and pre-emptive (5ps). These 5Ps within the AP Region can improve:
These health technologies have their greatest application in NCD control and care. We can transform and personalise the way in which, and how fast, NCDs are screened, diagnosed, and treated without disrupting lives and families. Personalised Medicine aims to give the right treatment to the right patient at the right time. This gives us better outcomes and improves patient safety, particularly reducing the risk of adverse events. |
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11:15 - 13:00 | Plenary 2 - Making an Impact in Women's Health - A Call to Action Workshop
Did you know that less than half the global population comprises women at 49.6% representing 3.9+ billion people. Despite this, inequalities persist. The 2021 Globocan report stated that female breast cancer has surpassed lung cancer as the most commonly diagnosed cancer, with an estimated 2.3 million new cases (11.7%), followed by lung (11.4%), colorectal (10.0 %) and prostate (7.3%). Women are central to healthcare as main decision-makers & budget-holders. Improving Women’s Health leads to an improvement in population health as a whole. Targeting investment on Women’s Health yields significant economic returns. The panel session has two objectives. First, after COVID-19, women’s health is being prioritised within the WHO SEA Region to attain the targets set in the Sustainable Development Goal 3 (the health goal of access to universal health coverage) and Goal 5, the gender equality goal. As a Non-State Actor in Official Relations with the World Health Organization (WHO), IAPO supports the framework strategies set for women’s health by both the WHO and UN Women, and wants to raise awareness about the health issues and promote them at the APPC 2022 session. Second, from the existing epidemiology and health technology innovation, the session will highlight key disparities faced by women patients in accessing NCD healthcare, focusing on women centered cancer care due to health system arrangements and social/structural factors. WHO believes that being a man or a woman has a significant impact on health because of both biological and gender-related differences. The health of women and girls is of particular concern to WHO because, in many societies, they are disadvantaged by discrimination rooted in sociocultural and structural factors. A Call to Action workshop follows the panellist session. It aims to bring together Women Centered Cancer Care organisations to identify key challenges, policies and advocacy actions needed to bring change and prioritise women centered care with a focus on rising incidence of breast cancer. |
14:30 - 15:30 | Parallel Session 1 - Primary Healthcare in Asia-Pacific and the Astana Declaration on Primary Health Care: Where are we? This session looks at how commitments made at the 2018 Global Conference on Primary Health Care, in Astana, Kazakhstan, have helped to invest in knowledge and capacity development, health system and workforce strengthening, investment in health technologies, and health financing. All the WHO Member States endorsed the Astana Declaration emphasising the critical role of primary health care around the world. The declaration aimed at refocusing efforts on primary health care to ensure that everyone everywhere can enjoy the highest possible attainable standard of health. Strengthening the PHC approach is fundamental to achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and the health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Declaration is accessible here. The Primary Health Care Performance Initiative (PHCPI) says that Strong Primary Health Care Saves Lives in Times of Crisis and Calm! PHCPI is a partnership of country policymakers, health systems managers, advocates and others passionate about catalysing primary health care improvements in low- and middle-income countries. PHCPI believes primary health care is critical to keeping people safe and healthy in times of crisis and calm. In this session, we will hear from the regional PHCs and PHCPI on how, by being dedicated to transforming the global state of primary health care, we get nearer to UHC 2030 delivery. |
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14:30 - 15:30 | Parallel Session 2 - Health Equity and Vulnerable Groups in Asia-Pacific
This session looks at the new health equity landscape post-COVID in Asia-Pacific. The pandemic just extended the number of people and communities in Asia-Pacific that are now considered vulnerable. Thailand is in a region where long-term conflict and post-COVID economic shock have precipitated an acute health crisis within refugee and migrant communities. The 75th WHO Southeast Asia Regional Committee has said that mental health problems have attained a new dimension in the region. To promote mental health in the Region, Member countries of the WHO South-East Asia Region adopted the Paro Declaration, committing to universal access to people-centred Mental Health Care and Services.
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15:30 - 17:30 | Workshop Women’s Cancer in Thailand – Exploring Areas of Focus and Collaborations with Thai Women’s Cancer Patient Organizations [by invitation only] |
16:00 - 17:00 | Workshop on Accreditation of NSA/Patient Organizations with WHO SEARO and WPRO
In 2021, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Regional Committee for Africa adopted a procedure for accreditation of regional non-State Actors not in official relations with the WHO to participate in their annual sessions. This was the first time that a WHO Regional Committee has created an accreditation procedure for non-State Actors, such as regional nongovernmental organizations, international business associations and philanthropic foundations, in accordance with the WHO Framework of Engagement with Non-State Actors (FENSA). WHO’s pivotal role in global health, as well as its extensive expertise, makes it a powerful ally for patients’ organizations. With this workshop, we want to raise awareness of the benefits patient organizations can gain from achieving the accreditation status with a Regional Committee, and will share our own experience of being an organization in official relations with the WHO. We will review the requirements for the accreditation procedure, as well as current opportunities that could act as a springboard towards patient organizations achieving this status. We also want to collaborate to form an advocacy group to ask for the Regional Committees for SEARO and WPRO to open that same avenue offered by the Regional Committee for Africa.
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Day 2 - 24 November 2022
8:30 - 9:00 | Welcome and Networking/Registering |
9:00 - 10:00 | Plenary 3 - Asia-Pacific Delivering Compassionate and Humanised Healthcare. Putting People, Communities, and Society at the Heart of Healthcare This session takes the lessons from IAPO’s side events held on the topic at the 75th World Health Assembly and the 75th WHO SEA Regional Committee. This side-event will explore the development of healthcare from patient-centred healthcare to person-focused healthcare care and now, post-COVID, to the humanisation of healthcare. This session will look at subtle and some stark differences between all three approaches: 1. Patient-centred healthcare focuses on the patient and their individual preferences regarding their own health condition and choices; 2. Person-focused healthcare looks at the individual with their own broader history. It looks at their total need starting with health promotion, prevention, and treatment through the life course of the patient’s life; 3. Humanised healthcare aims to focus on all stakeholders involved in healthcare and their interactions, needs and participation. It aims to humanise the relational, organisational, and structural aspects of this healthcare. This session will also look at WHO’s guidelines and technical briefings that show how humanised healthcare can lead to compassionate healthcare. Compassionate care is concerned about the welfare of all stakeholders. The health and well-being of the patient and their health professional are inseparable. The WHO produced guidelines that reflect on how compassion arises from: • Awareness of human suffering; • Emotional resonance with that suffering (empathy); • Action (or a desire) to relieve that suffering. IAPO, as a part of the International Experience Exchange with Patient Organisations (IEEPO), has joined a global community to demand and call to action to empower change and transformation of healthcare systems into delivering humanised healthcare. IEEPO has published a position paper that calls to action that health systems: 1. Put people at the heart of healthcare; 2. Humanise health literacy; 3. Humanise digital healthcare to build capacity by harnessing the power of patient data; 4. Humanise healthcare to focus on prevention and cure with a new 50:50 model; 5. Prioritise diversity, equity, and inclusion to humanise approaches to healthcare. |
10:00 - 11:00 | Plenary 4 - Translating the WHO Global Patient Safety Action Plan - Patient and Family Engagement Section into National Patient Safety Networks and Alliances in Asia-Pacific This session will raise awareness and develop common strategies to advance WHO’s Global Patient Safety Action Plan’s fourth strategy to Engage and empower patients and families to help and support the journey to safer health care. The Member States in the region aim at engaging patients and families in Asia-Pacific within five programmes:
This session will look at how we can all support the State and health systems in meeting the targets set for the above by setting up national patient and family alliances and networks. |
11:30 - 12:30 | Parallel Session 3 - Rare Diseases in Asia-Pacific and the UN Resolution for Rare
This session looks at the regional and national approaches to implementing the UN Resolution on Addressing the Challenges of Persons Living with a Rare Disease and their Families, adopted on 16 December 2021. The resolution recognises the need to promote and protect the human rights of all persons, including the estimated 300 million Persons Living with a Rare Disease worldwide. This ground-breaking resolution was adopted by all 193 UN Member States and is the first UN document to recognise the specific challenges of Persons Living with a Rare Disease (PLWRD) and their families. This session debates whether it is better to have a global and regional UN/WHO resolution or to have national laws. At the Latin American Patients Congress, we discussed Chile’s pioneering Ricarte Soto Law, which addressed the rights and needs of patients through national health and social welfare legal, policy, practice, and standards framework. Has the Asia Pacific got a similar approach? The session also looks at the right to gene and cell therapies as a part of the access to high-cost medicines. |
11:30 - 12:30 | Parallel Session 4 - Health Technology Assessment and Value Based Healthcare in Asia- Pacific This session looks at access to innovative medicines through patient engagement and advocacy activity in health technology assessment and value-based healthcare approaches. Health is a political choice. UHC 2030 investment choices are being made within a complex post-covid competing ecosystem. How will innovative evidence-based medicines, services, health devices and other health technologies be procured to ensure that countries can extend their UHC 2030 to cover most of their population, giving them more appropriate and effective healthcare services and medicines, and reducing their out-of-pocket contributions? How do you then decide what is reimbursed? The Prince Mahidol Award Conference 2016, in Thailand, released a landmark study entitled A Star in the East – A Short History of HITAP . The study by Prince Mahidol University, World Health Organization Country Office for Thailand, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the International Decision Support Initiative (iDSI) praised how Thailand and its Health Intervention and Technology Assessment Program (HITAP) was advancing access to innovation through Health technology assessment (HTA) by using it as a tool to review technologies and provide evidence of the value these technologies can deliver to patients and their families, health system stakeholders, and to society more broadly. Value-Based Health Care (VBHC) is based on the research of Prof Michael Porter and Prof Elizabeth Teisberg and is a framework for restructuring health care systems around the globe with the overarching goal of value for patients. IAPO collaborated with Value Institute for Health & Care, University of Texas, at their Barcelona Summit to discover how to implement high-value health care. This session aims to raise awareness of what HTA and VBHC are and how Asia-Pacific patients can engage in the process of improving the access to innovative healthcare services. We will look at how Thai HITAP, patients and governments can work together to make investment decisions in reimbursement to attain universal health coverage in 2030, in an efficient and effective manner, so that we have access to innovative healthcare services, devices, and medicine, and accessing this healthcare is not financially ruinous. |
13:30 - 15:00 | Workshop with Thai Patient Organizations: Capability Building of Thai NCDs Patient Organizations to Develop NCDs’ Patient Safety Action Plan [by invitation only] |
14:00 - 15:00 | Parallel Session 5 - Celebrating the World Antimicrobial Awareness Week (WAAW): ‘Preventing Antimicrobial Resistance Together’ This session will be dedicated to celebration of the World Antimicrobial Awareness Week (WAAW), showcasing the progress made in the patient and caregiver engagement in the fight against antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and what are the common efforts needed for the future in preserving antimicrobials as one of the most powerful tools in modern medicine. Among the key activities are the AMR Patient Alliance established in 2021 to gather the patient and caregiver voice and empower them to collaborate with other stakeholders in ensuring access to quality medicine while at the same time advocating for appropriate use of antibiotics. The session combines updates on global and regional policy efforts and good practices of patient empowerment in the fight against AMR. The Patient Global Consensus Statement and a Call to Action on AMR will be presented, as key in creating critical mass for a meaningful and effective patient participation in co-design of policies and co-delivery of care in infectious disease management and medicines safety. An initiative will be raised to invite regional actors to express interest in establishing AMR Patient Alliance South-East Asia and West-Pacific Regional Chapters. |
14:00 - 15:00 | Parallel Session 6 - Mental Health and Asia-Pacific: PARO Declaration on Mental Health and Asia This session will look at the 75th WHO SEARO Regional Committee issued Paro Declaration in September 2022. The Declaration urges Member countries to develop and implement multisectoral policies across the life course to address mental health risks and reduce treatment gaps exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure that mental health services reach all those in need, close to where they live, without financial hardship. As part of the Declaration, Member countries agreed to develop country-specific targets to achieve universal primary care-oriented mental health services and mainstream mental health in policy planning, implementation, and evaluation. The Paro Declaration also calls for increased funding for community-based mental health networks and continuous supply of medicines and rehabilitation, including occupational therapy for everyone who needed them, and strengthening of data gathering and reporting, implementation of research and performance monitoring, to ensure context-sensitive improvement of mental health systems. The personal and economic distress, and the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, have widened the gaps in addressing mental health challenges, which include scarcity of human resources, low investment, stigma, inadequate prevention and promotion programmes, paucity of data, and lack of services in primary care settings. The Declaration calls for ensuring an effective and comprehensive response to mental health needs by establishing evidence-based and rights-oriented community mental health networks and systematically planning for the deinstitutionalization of care for people with severe mental disorders. Strengthening the capacity of the primary health care system is the foundation for the provision of mental health services and progress toward UHC, the health-related Sustainable Development Goals and the targets of WHO’s Comprehensive Mental Health Action Plan 2013–2030. Member countries are committed to expanding specialised and non-specialised mental health workforce by identifying new cadres of healthcare personnel who are specially trained, equipped and skilled for the delivery of mental health services at the primary care level, and work as part of multidisciplinary teams within the health sector. Community empowerment and active engagement of people with lived experience help reduce stigma and discrimination against people with mental disorders, family members and caregivers. |
15:30 - 17:00 | Plenary 5 - Asia-Pacific Digital Health, Artificial Intelligence and Regulation of Health Devices and Medicines During the height of Covid19 Pandemic, many Asia-Pacific countries adopted a number of digital and artificial intelligence solutions and health devices in their contact tracing, quarantine and other public health measures. Some deployed downloadable apps that use bluetooth proximity indicators to send out exposure alerts, other countries used credit card transactions, some even went as far as using social media, face recognition and car registration data. Whilst many such apps and their algorithms were welcomed as a great starting point in use of digital health and artificial intelligence in public health, there was however disquiet about their regulation, accuracy, privacy, confidentiality and human rights aspects. At the clinical care level, the development of medicines and complementary health devices has become a big feature of patient health and well being. Take the example of Diabetes Type 1 management; we now have a situation where the therapy and its outcomes depend entirely upon the medicine (insulin) and the digital health devices (insulin pump and continuous glucose monitors (CGMs)) working together and totally automated and connected to insulin pens, and apps. Further, healthcare professionals can co-develop solutions to apply the technology in a personalised way to foster diabetes self-management education and support. This session wants to highlight the twin developments of the APEC and WHO approaches to the digital transformation and its regulation in the Asia-Pacific Health Systems. WHO’s Global Strategy on Digital Health 2020-2025 has indicated that the digital transformation of health systems is critical. Patients can co-create and transform our healthcare ecosystems into delivering personalised healthcare using digital health technology. The APEC Conference on Digital Healthcare Innovation has said that Information and Communications Technology (ICTs) currently linked to the fields of health and medical care can provide healthcare professionals with more extensive and efficient tools for healthcare delivery by applying digital health data, wearable & sensors devices and smartphones apps to disease management, telehealth, and careful monitoring.The use of data-based digital technology to share real-time information between healthcare workers has demonstrated how effective digital health is. However, there is a concern in APEC about citizens’ rights to consent requirement for health data collection and use; some economies have passed emergency legislation for allowing the processing of personal data in the event of a pandemic period. This session will expand on how diagnostics, communication, patient outcomes and experience can improve with eHealth, Big Data, artificial intelligence, machine learning, virtual clinics, Electronic Patient Records, and QR Codes GS 1 Standard. There are many benefits from this growth in digital health, including improved access via telemedicine, more personalised care and self-care, and new ways for people to track and improve their own health. |
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17:00 -17:15 | Closing Ceremony |