EU Task Force on eHealth meets for the first time

An EU Task Force set up to assess the role of information and communications technologies (ICT) in health and social care and to suggest ways for ICT to be applied to promote innovation in healthcare met for the first time in Budapest on Tuesday (10th May)

The high level advisory group includes health care professionals, patients’ representatives, people from the medical, pharmaceutical and ICT industries, legal experts and policy makers. The meeting took place at this week’s eHealth conference.

The Task Force will advise the Commission on how to unlock the potential of eHealth and to achieve interoperability of eHealth services and technologies across the EU. It will also explore the relationships between eHealth, telemedicine, and social policy initiatives.

At present use of ICT in Europe’s hospitals is limited and patchy, according to an EU survey of over 900 hospitals published this week. Although more than 90 per cent of European hospitals are connected to broadband and 80 per cent have electronic patient record systems, only 4 per cent give patients online access to their electronic records.

European hospitals are more advanced than US counterparts in terms of external medical exchange, but lag behind in using electronic systems to transmit and view laboratory reports or radiology images.

The survey carried out for the European Commission provides food for thought for the EU eHealth Task Force, showing that while eHealth applications have a growing role in Europe’s hospitals, there are still wide variations in take-up. Services such as ePrescription, telemonitoring and access to patient records are not widely available in all EU hospitals.

As the survey indicates, there is not only considerable potential to increase the adoption of existing systems, but also to develop eHealth much further in the future, with the aim of allowing healthcare workers to dedicate more time to patients; enhancing self-help and independence of patients and elderly; and in the development of new diagnostic techniques.

Promoting eHealth is a key objective of the EU’s Digital Agenda and Neelie Kroes, European Commission Vice-President for the Digital Agenda called on the eHealth Task Force, “to creatively think through the possible consequences and opportunities of the digital area” for the way healthcare is delivered and administered.

eHealth tools can help provide better care, to more people, in a more sustainable and efficient manner, said Health Commissioner John Dalli. Calling for more interoperable services to be developed, Dalli said, “It is imperative that interoperable ICT systems and medical devices complement our initiative to give patients the right to cross-border health care.”

At present the European Commission is holding a public consultation on eHealth that will feed into the preparation of its eHealth Action Plan 2012-2020 to be published before the end of 2011. (Public Consultation on the eHealth Action Plan (eHAP) 2012-2020).