Digital Pharma: E-Health and the European agenda
pharmafile | November 19, 2010 | News story | Medical Communications | Digital Agenda, Digital Pharma blog, EC, European Commission, Neelie Kroes, digital patients, e-health, electronic patient records
The European Commission wants all European patients to be given secure online access to their medical records by 2015 and is poised to begin piloting the technology that will make this happen.
The Commission is also eyeing a 2020 deadline for the “widespread deployment of telemedicine services”.
The moves are part of its flagship Digital Agenda programme, which was launched earlier this year with an ambitious set of plans to drive technological progress across a range of areas, from faster broadband to narrowing the ‘digital divide’.
Healthcare is a key component of the initiative, and the Commission has repeatedly highlighted the potential of ‘e-health’ to address issues like healthcare costs, chronic diseases and the region’s ageing population.
It says e-health, a catch-all term for a range of digital technologies related to healthcare, can “dramatically improve the range and quality of care available to Europe’s patients and medical specialists”.
For example, according to the Commission home telemonitoring of heart patients can improve survival rates by 15%, reduce hospital days by 26% and save 10% in nursing costs.
At the helm of the Commission’s programme is vice president for the Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes, who has already singled out e-health as one of the most promising ways European society can benefit from information communications technology (ICT).
Earlier this month she challenged the Microsoft Government Leaders Forum event in London to “exploit the endless health-related opportunities” and “capitalise on how social media can connect the generations”.
“The European Union will be there to support you with pilot projects, funding risky research and enabling better networks. But you make it happen at the end of the day,” she said.
As part of this the Commission is planning a series of large-scale pilot projects to prepare for giving European patients, and their doctors, secure online access to their medical health data anywhere in the European Union.
The aim is to improve the safety of patients and the medical assistance they receive, and there will be a minimum requirement for what information has to be in such patient records.
The Digital Agenda was launched in May this year as a way of harnessing technology help address challenges like climate change and Europe’s ageing population.
The ten-year plan has a goal of “every European digital”, that is ‘digitally-empowered’ consumers with secure online rights and privacy protection, and equipped to benefit from the digital EU market-place.
Dominic Tyer is web editor for Pharmafocus and InPharm.com and the author of the Digital Pharma blog He can be contacted via email, Twitter or LinkedIn.
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