The EU Health Strategy, set out in May 2000, aims to integrate all EU health-related policies and concentrate resources where the Community can provide real added value, without duplicating the work of the Member States or international organisations.Information and Communication Technlolgies (ICTs) play a crucial role in European competitiveness, recognised in the Lisbon Strategy since the beginning in 2000.
eHealth or ICTs for Health describes the application of ICTs across the full range of functions that affect the health sector. eHealth is a eEurope 2005 policy priority, setting targets for both the European Commission and Member States to meet in areas such as:
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building on the European health insurance card to promote a European electronic health card, that could feature such added functionalities as medical emergency data and secure access to personal health information;
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developing Health Information Networks to speed the flow of health information through the healthcare system
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putting health services online such as information on healthy living and illness prevention, electronic health records, teleconsultation and e-reimbursement.
The European eHealth action plan adopted in 2004 takes a twin track approach: making the most of new information and communication technologies in the health sector and better integrating a range of e-Health policies and activities. It will provide a framework for exchanging best practices and experience and enable common approaches to shared problems to be developed over time. This plan focuses on specific actions, so to create by the end of the decade a borderless European Health information space.
Activities within the health information action line of the European Public Health Programme include:
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a study about the possibility to collect data from Electronic Health Records (EHR), which exist already in some Member States. EHR's are databases which make patient health information accessible via secure internet connections, for example to physicians in the case of an accident. This project aims to explore how public authorities could use EHRs for Public Health purposes, collecting data on the health status of the population. The focus will be on data relating to diabetes, mental illness and ischemic heart disease,
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further development using sophisticated information technologies, the Early Warning and Response Systems (EWRS) which helps authorities in the EU to inform each other on outbreaks or reportable events in the field of communicable disease surveillance and control,
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a public health portal, will become operational and will be launched at the latter end of 2005. It will complement the existing European Commission Public health website. The creation of this portal is an initiative undertaken under the EU Public Health Programme 2003-2008, adopted by the European Parliament and the Council in September 2002. Its main objective is to provide citizens, patients, health professionals, policy makers, and other interested stakeholders with a single, pan-European access point. The access point will lead to data and information on public health and related areas from both Community and other national, regional and other relevant sources.
Apart from this, the research funded under the eHealth Strategic Objective of the Information Society Technologies research programme is helping create an 'intelligent environment' that allows ubiquitous management of each person's health status, and assists health professionals in coping with major health challenges. The focus areas include key technologies, such as biosensors and secure communications, software tools to help health professionals take the best possible decisions assuring patient safety, networking multidisciplinary researchers in the fields of bio-informatics, genomics, and neuro-informatics to help create a new generation of eHealth systems to assist the 'individualisation' of disease prevention, diagnoses and treatment.
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