APPIS 2024: Healthcare Stakeholders Come Together to Prioritize Action for Better Patient Outcomes in Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa

"Healthcare challenges in Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa are diverse and complex. Patients often face challenging barriers, from health misinformation to complicated and outdated health policies that result in a poorer healthcare experience," said Rod Padua, President of Touched By Max. Inc Philippines and Strategic Advisor of APPIS 2024. "Over the last four years, the APPIS platform has brought together our healthcare ecosystem - and all those involved – to collaborate on addressing the biggest challenges for patients in our region, and we've already seen positive impact for patients on the ground."

Since 2021, APPIS has united over 2,000 people, including patient organizations, policymakers, payers, physicians, and academics, to facilitate knowledge-sharing and form partnerships on patient innovation and solutions. APPIS aims to collectively inform, inspire, and drive action to address barriers to patient access through programs and initiatives held throughout the year. The region-wide, virtual APPIS Summit sets the stage for the APPIS Innovator Program, APPISx, and the online APPIS Resource Center.

The APPIS Innovator Program
To support patient organizations in scaling their innovative solutions, the APPIS Innovator Program was launched in 2022. Every year, a panel of patient leaders and healthcare experts will assess the submissions using the criteria of impact, innovation, potential to scale, fit to category, and progression. Winners of the APPIS Innovator Program will enter a one-year partnership with Novartis that will provide coaching from topic experts, increased visibility via the APPIS platform, and financial support to scale their innovative patient solutions. Submissions for this year's APPIS Innovator Program will be open from March 20 to April 5, with winners to be announced in June 2024.

APPISx
APPISx promotes country-level engagements by bringing together patient organizations and healthcare stakeholders to catalyze action-oriented solutions that address barriers to healthcare. Notable achievements include APPISx India's establishment of the country's first cardiovascular patient organization, Heart Health India Foundation, APPISx Philippines' workshop to enhance the submission of the National Psoriasis Care Bill to Congress and APPISx Taiwan's incorporation of the patient voice in the Health Technology Re-assessment (HTR) in Taiwan.

In 2024, 16 APPISx sessions will be conducted across the region in South Korea, Australia, Turkey, Taiwan, Egypt, India, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Japan, Thailand, South Africa, and countries in the Middle East and the Sub-Saharan Africa region, building upon the 11 APPISx sessions held last year.

"Healthcare ecosystems are a complex network of stakeholders coming together to serve patients. Yet, every day, patients with conditions ranging from heart disease and cancer through to rare conditions like spinal muscular atrophy still face barriers when accessing the information and care they need, and this ultimately leads to poorer outcomes," said  Ruth Kuguru, Executive Director, Communications & Engagement, Novartis Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa. "To change the story for patients everywhere, we must ensure that we work towards a collective goal of addressing these barriers. That's why I'm proud of how the APPIS community has come together to help advance patient access to quality healthcare and improve health equity. There's still much more that needs to be done, and so I'm excited for APPIS 2024 and how we can continue to help create a positive impact for patients."

The APPIS Summit 2024 will be held on 19 & 20 March from 15:00-18:00 (GMT +8) each day.
The sessions will be broadcast in English with simultaneous translation into Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Turkish, and Vietnamese.

Register here: https://www.appisinitiative.com/appis-summit-2024

About APPIS
The Alliance and Partnerships for Patient Innovation and Solutions (APPIS) platform aims to drive better outcomes for healthcare consumers across Asia Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa by bringing together patient communities and other key stakeholders in the healthcare ecosystem, such as policymakers, payers, the medical community, health journalist and health-tech players to identify key challenges and prioritize actionable solutions together to address access barriers for patients. The APPIS platform includes the annual region-wide APPIS Summit, the APPIS Innovator Program, an online Resource Centre and APPISx, country-level programs that address healthcare topics of local importance. APPIS is organized and funded by Novartis.

For more information, visit appisinitiative.com.

About Novartis
Novartis is an innovative medicines company. Every day, we work to reimagine medicine to improve and extend people's lives so that patients, healthcare professionals and societies are empowered in the face of serious disease. Our medicines reach more than 250 million people worldwide.

Reimagine medicine with us: visit https://www.novartis.com

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