Cutting the cost of a healthier EU

Published: 09/14

BRUSSELS, BELGIUM - (HealthTech Wire) - eHealth has become a major growth industry. New electronic services combined with organisational changes are making healthcare more efficient. Both healthcare professionals and patients can now get quick and easy access to vital information.

The policy context

For two decades now, the European Commission has contributed to the improvement of healthcare through research & development programmes on new technologies, and through the promotion of newly developed systems and services. One of the key challenges recognised in the Commission's strategic framework, i2010, which aims at a European Information Society for growth and jobs, is to meet the increasing needs of healthcare in our ageing society.

Ongoing research

The EU funds research projects developing eHealth systems and services that focus on prevention, personalisation and patient empowerment. The Commission has devoted a significant part of the Seventh research framework programme (FP7) budget to develop information, communication and technology (ICT) tools for sustainable healthcare systems by focusing on three specific areas:

• Personal health systems that engage the patient in active prevention and chronic disease management;
• Systems to avoid medical errors, which result in more deaths than road accidents;
• ICT systems that will enable a new generation of personalised medicine providing knowledge about the person and disease, that takes into account all factors (including genetic predispositions), and can use computer simulations to optimise surgery and therapy.

Accelerating the development of the eHealth market

The Commission has led a number of political initiatives to support and encourage a greater dialogue among healthcare administrations in the Member States. In 2004 it adopted an eHealth Action Plan that calls on Member States and on the Commission to accelerate deployment and speed up delivery of the benefits of eHealth to individuals, our society at large and to the wider economy. Recent activity focuses on obstacles to the efficient realisation of this plan, in particular:

• Market fragmentation and lack of interoperability between systems;
• lack of legal certainty;
• lack of financial support;
• procurement issues.

Targeted actions to remove these obstacles include the following:

• Adoption of a Recommendation on eHealth interoperability;
• definition of required standards;
• preparation of guidelines for certification of eHealth applications;
• screening of existing EU legislation related to eHealth, clarifying and giving guidance for applying the legal framework for eHealth products and services;
• empowering citizens with information on cross-border health services;
• providing guidance on financing from funds like the EU FP7(1) and structural funds(2) and European Investment Bank initiatives(3);
• promoting networking and cooperation among public procurers in the process of developing new solutions.

The real impact of eHealth

eHealth services provide a unique set of tools for overcoming many of the challenges that health delivery systems are facing today, through the development of new patient-centred health systems, which meet the complex needs of our changing society.
Technological leadership has led to the emergence of an eHealth industry in Europe that is currently estimated to be worth €20 billion. Today, many European countries and regions are world leaders in eHealth, having advanced health information networks, electronic health records and health cards.

Achievements and further actions

The following achievements are due in 2007/beginning of May 2008:

• The launch of large scale pilots within the Competitiveness and Innovation programme, eHealth being one of them supporting:
  • interoperability of health information systems across borders for emergency care, unforeseen visits and for prescription of drugs;
  • chronic disease management by integrating health and social services.

• Issuing a recommendation on interoperability (beginning of 2008);
• Encouraging the competitiveness of European small and medium-sized enterprises;
• The conclusion of important studies on the legal framework, privacy and  certification;
• The launch of two calls corresponding to €170m in research funding, that will lead to new activities and challenges in the fields of personal health systems, personal safety and the virtual physiological human (simulators of diseases or organ functions);
• An initiative on lead markets, that will associate several other parts of the Commission to accelerate the creation of innovative eHealth markets;
• The 'World of Health IT' conference in Vienna (23-24 October 2007);
• Next year's Ministerial conference in Slovenia (6-8 May 2008).

These are all major events which should reinforce current policy activities.