“Health is the ability of adaptation and self management to physical, mental and social challenges”.

-Dr. Alex Jadad, founder of the Centre for Global eHealth Innovation at the University of Toronto, in Canada, presented at a Conference at the Hospital de Basurto a new concept of health, created through a collaboration at the global level that took more than 3 years

– so far, maintaining existing definition which established who in its founding in 1948, in which health was the complete state of physical, mental and social well-being, and not only the absence of disease ”

– according to this definition, there is nobody really healthy, because anything that you overwhelm something you’re not in complete well-being ”, drew Jadad.

-the betting expert for focus health policies, training programmes, biomedical research and health services in a new concept that allows us to have a healthy life

-the new concept located health as the ability of an individual or a community to adapt and manage your life in the face of physical, mental, and social challenges

– this new concept aligns very well with the priority given by the Basque country to the chronicity

-since we will all have something when we are older ”, Jadad defends the change of concept because can not live convicts to know that we won’t have health in the future ”

Bilbao, January 2012.- the prestigious doctor, educator, researcher, and public defender Alex Jadad has returned to Bilbao, this time to give a lecture on if it is time to redefine the concept of health. Health: a new transformer concept organized by the Basque Institute for innovation health o + Berri in the Hospital de Basurto, Dr. Jadad, explained his vision on how has to redefine the concept of health, and the importance that this can have, as what today it handles is a definition who established in its founding, in 1948 and which has been heavily criticized since then.

WHO defined health as the complete state of physical, mental and social well-being ”. However, by Jadad, this definition, which has been existing for 64 years, must revise something proposed already in 2008 as part of a global conversation supported by Revista Medica British (British Medical Journal), one of the most prestigious publications in the world. According to this concept, nobody in the world would be healthy, because having, for example, a small pain in the shoulder, an incurable (for now) disease such as diabetes or wear glasses, means that you no longer have health ”. The innovative advocates a concept of health which represents the capacity of adaptation and self-management to physical, mental and social challenges ”. If you have bad view and you get a pair of glasses you are already enjoying health, you are adapting to the situation; the same as a diabetic today can have a healthy life thanks medications and adjustments in their daily lives ”, indicates.

For this expert, this new perspective is very important, because you can direct us to where there is to make our efforts in health policy, where must direct investments in services that really meet our needs, and the role that each of us plays in society at a time in which practically all people will be affected by one or more chronic diseases During his lifetime.

El País Vasco is at the forefront ”, says Jadad, by the bet made by focus on the healthcare towards prevention which can prevent, treat what is curable and adapting to what makes us suffer inevitably ”. we will all have something when we are older ”, says Jadad, who adds that if we maintained the ancient health definition, we would be condemned to live knowing that in the future we careceríamos health ”. For this reason, for him, the new concept it stands is revolutionary ” because we heading towards a new model of health management and invites us to re – consider our role as individuals and to re-invent our life in community ”.

Alex Jadad is a member of the Royal College of physicians and Surgeons of Canada (FRCPC), Member of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences (FCAHS) and founder of the Centre for Global eHealth Innovation (Center for Global innovation in e-health) of the University of Toronto in Canada, and is regarded as one of the innovators with greater impact on human well-being in the world.