Page 6 - Lessons learned from Ebola & COVID19 - June 2020

the Council and the European Commission affirmed their strong commitment to fundamental rights of
professionals and improved living and working conditions. Principle 10 of the pillar, for example, stresses the
“right of professionals’ right to a high level of protection of their health and safety at work and to a working
environment adapted to their professional needs and which enables them to prolong their participation in the
labour market”. It is therefore key that in order to address the challenge of a changing world, the EU continuously
improve the national OSH strategies and policies, as well as the protection of the self-employed through
legislative or other measures, to make sure that we are prepared for any other upcoming crisis as we had with
Ebola and COVID-19. Furthermore, it is important that the existing EU legislation is being implemented correctly
and that action is being taken by the European Commission to ensure that the EU Member States comply with
the EU legislation that protects the frontline workforce.

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In line with the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) , data is crucial to better understand
and address the needs of the frontline staff possibly dealing with an IDHC. Hence, the data collected from the
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EFN questionnaire on Ebola (2015) , mapping the level of preparedness in the European countries for a possible
outbreak of IDHC, was aiming at raising awareness on the importance of the correct implementation of existing
EU legislation and further EU action supporting capacity building and appropriate training and equipment.
Nurses need to be supported and empowered, since they are the backbone of frontline care in every healthcare
setting. They need to be included in the decision-making processes to address the existing gaps in preparedness
for a future possible outbreak of such diseases. The EU institutions & policy makers need to understand the
requirements of the frontline workforce to provide practical support where it is required. Academic insights are
crucial, but not at the expense of those caring daily for IDHC patients. The European Commission, especially DG
Sante, should recognise this and factor it into future work.

We recognise that the European Institutions have been taking this health crisis very seriously, with a common
European response to the outbreak, taking actions to reinforce the public health sectors and mitigate the socio-
economic impact in the European Union, and to help the EU Member States coordinate their national responses,
with a Coronavirus response team established at political level to coordinate the European Commission
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response to the pandemic; the first ever strategic rescEU stockpile of medical equipment such as ventilators,
protective masks, vaccines and therapeutics, laboratory supplies, to help the EU countries; a €3 billion from the
EU budget to support the EU healthcare systems; two legislative acts adopted to quickly release funding from
the EU budget for tackling the COVID-19 crisis: One amending the rules of the structural and investment funds,
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and the other extending the scope of the EU Solidarity Fund; the activation of the EU's crisis response
mechanism – the Integrated Political Crisis Response (IPCR), which allows an increased focus on identifying major
gaps across sectors and elaborating concrete EU response measures at presidency-led roundtables, and an EU
civil protection mechanism bringing together the national civil protection authorities with the European
Commission, DG ECHO, putting a solidarity pool of nurses together to help other EU countries in need of support
in times of crisis and for which the EFN provided its expert input to.

ii. Digitalisation & Electronic Health Records
Digitalisation is a crucial aspect of modern societies and health and social care ecosystems, with technology
having an important role to contribute to enhancing patient safety and patient empowerment as well as
facilitating frontline healthcare professionals’ work, with electronic tools supporting them in their daily work
and allowing an easy and fast collection of relevant data, to hopefully free up time for direct patient care.
Digitalisation and the EU Electronic Health Record is essential for preparedness.

The Commission’s plan is to promote health, prevent and fight diseases, contributes to responding to unmet
patient needs and make it easier for citizens to have equal access to high-quality care through appropriate use

14 https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en
15 http://www.efnweb.be/?page_id=766
16 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_476
17 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52020PC0113
18 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52020PC0114

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