An e-Health project aims for citizens with chronic diseases and medical professionals in the partner regions to have the capacity and knowledge of, as well as the acceptance to use, e-Health technologies for prevention and treatment.
- 03 June 2015
A platform 'e-Health for Citizen' was developed, which provided an overview for patients in very simple terms, as to how e-health technologies could benefit them.
The knowledge and use of e-Health technologies by citizens and medical professionals is necessary for further generation of innovative technologies for the health sector. However, the learning and understanding of new knowledge and the acceptance of e-Health technologies varies remarkably among citizens and medical professionals and needs to be strengthened in all partner regions.
The project partnership is composed of professionals from hospitals, universities, regional administrations for health care planning, municipalities as well as telemedicine experts from the Baltic Sea Region. The project benefits from the e-Health for Regions network and its political strategic board set up during an INTERREG IIIB project for awareness building and dissemination. The e-Health for Regions network activities are run and financed independently from this project.
A growing need for e-Health
A consequence of an ageing population is the greater prevalence of citizens with chronic diseases, particularly among the elderly, in all partner regions. Therefore, prevention and treatment of chronic diseases is an important market and implementation area. e-Health technologies allow mutually beneficial collaboration with the involvement of patients and medical professionals in prevention and treatment. These technologies allow patients to take more responsibility for their own health and quality of life, and lead to improved cost-efficiency in the health sector.
Successful outcomes
The patient-centered approach proved successful in allowing patients with cardiovascular diseases to self-monitor, keep track of their own data, and use a tele-teaching program via different e-Health technologies. Travelling patients were also able to retain their mobility.
Experts involved in the flagship of the EU Strategy to the Baltic Sea Region believe the project sees and improves health literacy as a key to better health care in EU countries.
Total investment and EU funding
Total investment for the project ICT for Health is EUR 3 645 620, of which the EU’s European Regional Development Fund is contributing EUR 2 606 820 from the Operational Programme “Baltic Sea Region” for the 2007 to 2013 programming period.