The European health consumer of tomorrow will think and act in quite different ways from today. There will be a new landscape out there, driven by changing values and new information opportunities. As the consumer takes action there will finally be pressure from below for dialogue and interaction typically lacking in health care, explaining many of the system's flaws and output limitations.

By starting the Health Consumer Powerhouse "do-tank" in Brussels/Stockholm Johan Hjertqvist aims to support the rise of the health consumer. The Powerhouse develops systems to provide consumers and other stakeholders with hands-on information to make informed choices. June 15 the first ever EuroHealth Consumer Index will be launched at the Health Consumer Summit in Brussels (in Sweden the Svenskt Vardkonsumentindex already exists).

This CNE Health luncheon will give you a hint about the Health Consumer Vision - values changing the perception of healthcare - as well as a first look into the EuroHealth Consumer Index (who turns out to be the poorest performer among the EU-members regarding health consumer friendliness?)

Johan Hjertqvist is the founder and president of the Health Consumer Powerhouse in Brussels/Stockholm, the European do-tank for better healthcare by consumer information and knowledge (2004). Before the Powerhouse, Mr Hjertqvist was the director of Timbro Health Policy Unit, a division of the Timbro Policy Group, Stockholm, Sweden.

Mr Hjertqvist has a background in health care policy and welfare entrepreneurship. Starting 1999 he led a four-year project analysing the transformation of health care in the Stockholm region. The first report from this project was published in 2000 (“Sjukvårdens kulturrevolution”), followed by “Månfärd eller pyspunka” (2001) and “Slutet på början” (2002). His introduction to the Stockholm process (“The Stockholm health care revolution” in 2000 and “The end of the beginning" in 2003) is an internationally well-known inspiration to reform.

During the 1990s Mr Hjertqvist played an active role in the transition of internal market ideas to a number of countries, UK, Norway and Canada not the least.

Mr Hjertqvist has also acted as an adviser to the Greater Stockholm Council with a focus on market infrastructures where purchasers and providers can meet. Creating new arenas was also the idea behind his projects in 1995-99, bringing health care entrepreneurs and contractors together to strengthen the impact of market pluralism.

He is a frequent lecturer on health care reform. He writes newsletters and is a member of international health care networks and institutions such as the Stockholm Network in London, Centre for the New Europe in Brussels and The Frontier Center in Winnipeg.

Mr Hjertqvist has a Master of Laws degree from the University of Stockholm. In the late 1970s he was instrumental in the founding and building of the Timbro Policy Group, for a long time the sole think tank in Sweden (and still the most influential one). He was editor-in-chief of the NPT, another Timbro operation and the first Swedish news agency to promote business and economy material. In the middle of the 1980s he belonged to a small group of entrepreneurs starting the first private Swedish venture capital market. He also worked as a Senior Counsellor at the Burson-Marsteller Communications Group. 1991–94 he was deputy Mayor of his home town Tyresö outside Stockholm.

Mr Hjertqvist is the author of a number of books (non-fiction as well as fiction) on politics and health and has contributed to anthologies on similar subjects.