Health 2.0 Europe is a conference dedicated to how Web 2.0 and Social Media are transforming healthcare systems in Europe. It will be held, for the first time, on April 6-7, 2010 at the Cite Universitaire in Paris, France. Organized by e-health specialists “Health 2.0″ of San Francisco and Basil Strategies of Paris, the two-day event will assemble attendees from the converging industries of healthcare, the internet, mobile applications and social media, to network and brainstorm about technologies that are revolutionizing healthcare delivery and treatment.

The majority of the program will be featuring European Health 2.0 organisations, technologies and companies. So far, there are over 40 speakers from 12 different countries in Europe and the conference is also welcoming high profile Americans, such as PatientsLikeMe.com, Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault.

Over 500 attendees are expected at the inaugural event, hailing from patient and physician communities, online and mobile tool providers, hospitals, insurers, pharmaceutical companies and governments from across Europe.

A completely unique and innovative feature of the conference (in true Web 2.0 style) is that all delegates will have the opportunity to actively engage in the presentations and demos. The Health 2.0 conference is not a one way discussion, but a forum where all stakeholders can give their commentary and feedback.

The agenda will cover the key elements of Health 2.0 and showcase how consumers and professionals:

* Search for accurate health content
* Share personal information in online communities
* Use tools to improve the patient-physician relationship

You will gain unique insight into the following questions:

* How does specialized search relate to Health 2.0? Is there life beyond Google in Europe?
* Are online patient communities different across European countries?
* Have European doctors gone 2.0?
* Are personal health records being adopted by health care systems in Europe?
* How do European hospitals and governments relate to Health 2.0?
* Does Pharma need to play a more significant role in Health 2.0?

“E-health is one of the most important business sectors in Europe today,” says Denise Silber, president of Basil Strategies, who is organizing the Paris event with Health 2.0’s founders, Matthew Holt and Indu Subaiya. “Health 2.0 Europe integrates the Web 2.0 user-generated content concept with a number of aspects of health that are fundamentally different in Europe than in the U.S. It is therefore crucial to address the local industry with local actors from European countries, and we are thrilled by the number of partners who are already enthusiastically supporting this event.”

Etienne Caniard, President of the Department for Quality and Distribution of Medical Information at the French National Authority for Health adds that, “the impact of online technologies on healthcare, and in particular, on the relationships between physician and patient is greatly underestimated. One of the key challenges to address for the future is how to get the medical community to adopt these new tools without feeling forced to do so. Adoption by the professionals is the necessary condition for the changes in behavior that the French National Authority for Health wants to support to improve the quality of the healthcare system.”

Bupa have pledged their support as a sponsor and Dr Annabel Bentley, Bupa’s assistant medical director, explains why – “As an international healthcare company, Bupa is supporting the Health 2.0 Europe conference because understanding the changing way in which people are communicating about their health is vital to our business. We want to harness cutting-edge technologies to help more people make better decisions about their health to live longer, healthier and happier lives”