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Erik Janssen, head of digital care transformation at UCB, shares his HLTH Europe 2026 takeaways as a passionate healthcare leader and chronic disease patient.
For many people living with a chronic condition, care does not feel like one single journey. It can feel like a series of disconnected moments: consultations, diagnostic tests, new symptoms, waiting times and, at times, conflicting opinions.
I know this not only through my work at UCB in the digital care transformation team, but through my own experience. When you live with a chronic or rare condition, you understand how much care depends on continuity. You want the system to remember what has happened to you, so the next decision is informed by the full story, not only by the data point available in that moment.
Too often, this is not how care feels. This is not because healthcare professionals lack commitment. Care teams are working under increasing pressure, with workforce shortages making the delivery of care even harder to sustain. Chronic diseases do not always follow a predictable path to diagnosis. They evolve over time and can shape every part of a person’s life.
That is why the future of chronic care cannot simply be about creating more tools. It must be about connecting care around the person, while making healthcare more manageable, affordable and scalable for the systems delivering it.
From promise to proof
At HLTH Europe 2026, one shift stood out clearly: digital health is moving from promise to proof. Across conversations on AI, health data, provider transformation and new care models, the focus was less on what technology could do and more on where it can show measurable value.
Many digital health pilots show promise in controlled settings but struggle to translate into everyday clinical practice. Healthcare is a complex, living system shaped by workflows, reimbursement, regulation, workforce pressures, patient behaviours and trust. Any digital tool that does not fit this reality is unlikely to scale.
The value is not in AI alone. It comes when these capabilities help transform care delivery for patients, clinicians, hospitals and health systems. That requires implementation, execution and the right infrastructure around the technology.
One discussion at HLTH captured the problem well: patients often move from one doctor to another, spending significant time retelling their history, even when much of the relevant information exists somewhere in the system.
For anyone who has experienced this, it is more than an administrative frustration. It is tiring, and it places the burden of integration on the patient, rather than on the system designed to support them.
This is where digital health can make a real difference. The opportunity for healthcare is to make the right information available at the right time, in the right context, to the right person. It is to help care teams see patterns over time, support patients between appointments and make care feel less fragmented.
Chronic disease does not wait for the next consultation. Symptoms and quality of life can change rapidly, and for the people living with chronic disease, these gaps matter. For physicians and hospitals, better visibility between appointments can also help prioritise care, reduce avoidable escalation and make limited capacity go further.
Some of the most important work in digital care happens before a solution is deployed. That means understanding the pathway, listening to patients, engaging clinicians early and defining the evidence that will matter. Above all, it means being clear on the outcome that a digital intervention is meant to improve.
Technology alone is not enough if the operating model around it does not change. Digital tools need to be built into workflows, supported by evidence and trusted by the people using them. The real test is whether they help clinicians, give patients more confidence and enable care teams to deliver care more efficiently.
At UCB, we are establishing ecosystem partnerships to transform how care is delivered and experienced. We focus on accelerating access to care and enabling personalised care by bringing together healthcare stakeholders around solutions that are clinically meaningful, easy to adopt for patients and physicians, and capable of improving health outcomes.
Our ambition extends beyond individual digital solutions. We aim to integrate diagnosis, access, treatment and ongoing care into connected, end-to-end care models that support better patient outcomes at scale.
Future of chronic care
No single organisation can solve fragmented chronic care alone. Pharma, providers, startups, regulators, payers, patient groups and technology partners must collaborate in ways that are practical and grounded in shared outcomes. That’s why events like HLTH Europe are so important – they create space to share perspectives, challenge assumptions and learn more broadly from across the ecosystem.
For pharma, this requires clarity about our role. It is not to take over care delivery. It is to contribute where we can add value, through scientific understanding, patient insights, evidence generation and responsible partnerships.
It also means thinking differently about value. If digital care is to be sustainable, it needs to support outcomes that matter to patients while helping health systems remain affordable. In epilepsy care, for example, better seizure control can transform a person’s daily life, but it can also reduce pressure on emergency care, hospital services and wider system costs. That is the kind of shared value chronic care models should aim for.
We can help by acting as a partner across the ecosystem, supporting evidence-based solutions that are integrated into care pathways rather than sitting alongside them. Over time, we must redesign guidelines and care models that reflect how treatment, monitoring and care optimisation work together in real life.
The future of chronic care will not be defined by the most advanced technology. It will be defined by whether we can make care more continuous, more personalised and more human.
HLTH Europe was a reminder that the ambition is there. The next test is whether we can turn that ambition into care models that people can feel in their daily lives; improving how care is designed, experienced and delivered in real-world settings, so people living with severe and chronic diseases can access more personalised support and live more fully.
