21/03/2011 (Agence Europe) - High-level conference on innovative care. Health and Consumer Policy Commissioner John Dalli, and Hungarian Minister of State for Health Miklós Szócska will co-chair a high-level conference on innovative healthcare in Brussels on Tuesday 22 March. This conference is a follow-up to the exploratory process on the future of the medical device sector launched in 2009 - where stakeholders endorsed the need for a clear political vision of the role of the medical device sector in the health of citizens and the economy. Dalli and Szócska will call for improvements in the innovation process so that safe, life-saving and life-enhancing medical equipment can be brought to Europe's patients and consumers as quickly as possible. The conference outcomes are expected to feed into concrete initiatives, such as the recently launched European Partnership on Innovation and the upcoming recast of the medical device legislation. (I.L./transl.rt)