Information Can Save Your Life

ICTs can have a massive impact on all aspects of healthcare, from delivering the information people need to lead a healthy lifestyle to providing new tools to design tomorrow's medicines; from making healthcare systems more efficient and responsive to providing 'in the home' and mobile healthcare technologies.

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Overview ¦ Example Projects

"Over 80% of European primary care physicians are connected online"

All Europeans want the best healthcare for themselves and their families. Yet Europe is ageing, putting immense pressure on healthcare systems which already account for around 9% of EU GDP.

The health sector is, however, very information intensive, so advanced ICTs can make healthcare systems more cost-effective, allowing more funds to be spent on healthcare, and less on administering it. "e-Health" is therefore emerging as an important new global industry - an opportunity Europe's healthcare and ICT industries must not miss.

eHealth systems are not just about replacing paperwork with smartcards, however - ICTs also enable healthcare to be personalised. This not only makes treatments more effective, it enables doctors to diagnose problems more quickly, and even predict them before they occur.

ICTs can also improve healthcare more directly. They allow patients to be monitored in real-time, both in their homes and on the move, improving their quality of life, and playing key roles in countless treatments such as medical imaging. They also enable other parts of the healthcare sector to develop more powerful solutions, such as using supercomputers and Grids to help discover new medicines.

Healthcare professionals, however, are not alone in appreciating these benefits - health-related information is one of the most sought after topics on the World Wide Web, which puts a seemingly limitless quantity of health information at the fingertips of everyone with an internet connection.

Europe's eHealth industry is fragmented, so action at the European level is essential to ensuring that European industry takes a leading position in this strategic field and bring these benefits to all Europeans.

Further Details and Quicklinks

Policies
Activities
See Also

Relevant Policies

eHealth: Better Healthcare for Europe: covers eHealth policy development (the eHealth Action Plan), eHealth R&D, and applications and deployment. Subscribe to their eNewsletter to stay up to date

i2010: one of the i2010's three pillars is to foster Inclusion, better public services and quality of life through ICTs. As a result:
- an i2010 Flagship on ICT for independent living in an ageing society is currently under preparation;
- the EU public health portal was launched (see in particular the eHealth chapter);
- a Recommendation on eHealth interoperability is being prepared;
eHealth Action Plan (April 2004): setting out how ICTs can be used to deliver better quality health care Europe-wide;
Quality Criteria for Health-Related Websites (2003): while the Internet can provide health-related information and services in ways unimaginable before the Web, quality criteria are needed to help ensure the information is correct and safe;
The health effects of the ICT revolution are also tackled at the EU level:
- the areas covered by EU Health and Safety at work legislation include several which touch upon the health impacts of working with ICT equipment;
- the deployment of mobile phone and data systems has raised concerns about the possible health risks associated with exposure to Electro Magnetic Fields (EMF)

Relevant Activities

Browse some relevant Example Projects or jump straight to the following sites:

eHealth: Better Healthcare for Europe: covers eHealth policy development (the eHealth Action Plan), eHealth R&D, and applications and deployment. Subscribe to their eNewsletter to stay up to date.
One of the main themes of the ICT Policy Support Programme ('ICT PSP', 2007-2013) is to focus on ICT for sustainable and interoperable health services.
- ICT PSP builds on - among others - the eTEN programme. This also prioritised eHealth, focusing on health information networks, electronic healthcare and insurance cards, extending telemedicine, and expanding health and related services across Europe.
Health Information: towards a sustainable health monitoring system which can produce comparable information on health and health-related behaviour of the population, on diseases and health systems;
the epractice.eu - new service for the eGovernment, eInclusion and eHealth professional communities;
Privacy Enhancing Technologies - are being developed to minimise risks such as identity theft, discriminatory profiling, continuous surveillance or fraud;

See Also

From the Health Newsroom and Library:

Good eHealth - Exchange of Good Practices in eHealth Website (16 February 2007)
eHealth Factsheet: Legally eHealth: the legal and regulatory context (13 February 2007)
Brochure: Information Society and Health (October 2006)
Regional Health Studies (6 October 2006)
User Needs in ICT Reserch for Independent Living with a Focus on Health Aspects -report (June 2006)
For the latest relevant news, publications and more from the Newsroom & Library, see right hand column, or select Quality of Life when you subscribe to the Portal Newsroom Update;

Other sites and documents of interest include:

Improving road safety and our capability to respond to emergencies and disasters can also make a big impact on your health: see the Safety and Transport themes
"Health informatics and telemedicine" is one of the key areas of change in the health and social services sector, according to the European Monitoring Centre on Change in "Health and Social Services - vision for the future";

Last Updated March 2007