eHealth - making healthcare more efficient?
ICT has been revolutionising the healthcare sector in recent years and the EU has been moving towards a ‘European eHealth area’ for over a decade. With a number of action plans and strategies intended to boost innovation and jobs, the EU is trying to make European healthcare systems more effective and efficient. The Commission seems to be serious about eHealth and has made it one of its first six Lead Market Initiatives. It projected the European eHealth market to reach over €15.619 million by 2012 and to become the third largest industry in the health sector. This alone speaks for itself and its potential simply cannot be ignored.
Action plans and strategies have been launched, declarations have been signed, but in practice, very little has happened and the question is whether the efforts so far have been pushing hard enough for a ‘Single European eHealth market’. On top of that the public has only a weak understanding of eHealth, which is not helping efforts to move towards more eHealth uptake.
The question is - Do we have a choice? European healthcare systems are facing the growing challenge of an ageing population and the European Commission’s ICT Unit for Health has pointed out that Europe needs a new healthcare delivery model. Member States agree that we need to make eHealth more accessible, interactive and customised to patients, whilst it takes a coordinated effort and exchange of information to encourage best practice across Europe. With the Commission’s Cross-Border Healthcare Directive awaiting its Second Reading before the European Parliament, eHealth is going to become an even more topical issue than it already is and consequently might finally be addressed with the seriousness it deserves by all stakeholders.
hanover and ACCA are organising a multi-stakeholder workshop in the European Parliament on 12 October hosted by Antonyia Parvanova MEP to look at the potential and the future of ICT in health including a best practice session and a high-level panel discussion on future policy options.
Felix Schuchter
Researcher
October 7 2010