e-Health - making healthcare better for European citizens

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e-Health - making healthcare better for European citizens : An action plan for a European e-Health Area e-Health - making healthcare better for European citizens : An action plan for a European e-Health Area

1. INTRODUCTION e-Health matters. It can improve access to healthcare and boost the quality and effectiveness of the services offered. e-Health describes the application of information and communications technologies across the whole range of functions that affect the health sector.

e-Health tools or solutions include products, systems and services that go beyond simply Internet-based applications. They include tools for both health authorities and professionals as well as personalised health systems for patients and citizens. Examples include health information networks, electronic health records, telemedicine services, personal wearable and portable communicable systems, health portals, and many other information and communication technology-based tools assisting prevention, diagnosis, treatment, health monitoring, and lifestyle management.

When combined with organisational changes and the development of new skills, e-Health can help to deliver better care for less money within citizen-centred health delivery systems. It thus responds to the major challenges that the health sector - which employs 9% of Europe’s workforce - is currently facing.

e-Health is today’s tool for substantial productivity gains, while providing tomorrow’s instrument for restructured, citizen-centred health systems and, at the same time, respecting the diversity of Europe’s multi-cultural, multi-lingual health care traditions. There are many examples of successful e-Health developments including health information networks, electronic health records, telemedicine services, wearable and portable monitoring systems, and health portals. Today, at least four out of five European doctors have an Internet connection, and a quarter of Europeans use the Internet for health information.

European Community research programmes have been supporting e-Health for the last fifteen years. The co-financing allocated since the early 1990s has reached €500 million, with a total budget about twice that amount. Many research results have now been tested and put into practice. This has put Europe in a leading position in the use of electronic health records in primary care and deployment of health (smart) cards. These developments have contributed to the emergence of a new "e-Health industry" that has the potential to be the third largest industry in the health sector with a turnover of €11 billion. By 2010 it could account for 5% of the total health budget. At present, the e-Health industry in Europe - mainly made up of small- and medium-sized enterprises - has a competitive advantage, but it still needs to enjoy a more favourable business environment.

Member States have shown that they are keen to take an e-Health agenda forward2, drawing on best practices and experience from across the Union. This should enable a move towards a "European e-Health Area" ; a framework built on a wide range of European policies and initiatives. In describing this European e-Health Area, an emerging framework for concerted actions and synergies in e-Health is envisaged that provides a favourable environment for the integration of related policies at a Community level. Since the health sector in Europe is a predominantly public sector service, most of the challenges and actions described in the Communication on ’The Role of eGovernment for Europe’s future’3 also apply here.