Brussels, 10/05/2011 (Agence Europe) - The EU eHealth Task Force has met for the first time in Budapest on 10th May, on the sidelines of eHealth Week. The meeting was chaired by Estonia's President Toomas Hendrik Ilves. Neelie Kroes, European Commissioner for the Digital Agenda, said: “The potential of eHealth for delivering better and sustainable care to every European is enormous”. John Dalli, European Commissioner in charge of Health and Consumer Policy said: “There is a clear need in Europe to exploit the potential of eHealth to deliver concrete solutions for patients…It is imperative that interoperable ICT systems and medical devices complement our initiative to give patients the right to cross-border health care”. The high level advisory group comprises health care professionals, representatives of patients and of the medical, pharmaceutical and ICT industries, legal experts and policy makers. The eHealth Task Force will advise the Commission on how to unlock the potential of eHealth for safer, better and more efficient healthcare in Europe inter alia as regards diagnosis, prevention and treatment. It will look carefully at how the innovation can help health systems and society as a whole. It will consider, too, the links between online health, telemedicine and social policy initiatives. It will take into account current policy developments at EU level, including the Digital Agenda for Europe, the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing and the recently adopted directive on patient rights in cross-border care. The use of eHealth aims to improve the quality of health care and improve the autonomy and decision-making capacity of patients. It is one of the goals in the European Digital Strategy, which set 2015 as the deadline for giving patients the possibility of consulting their medical records online.
At the same time, they Commission has published results from an investigation into telemedicine services in hospitals. This was carried out last year throughout the EU, plus Croatia, Iceland and Norway. According to the survey, more than 90% of hospitals in Europe have broadband and 80% of them have online patient records. Nonetheless, although the use of new technology in health care is increasing, only 4% of hospitals currently allow their patients online access to their records, which demonstrates that there is still a lot to be done in the field of eHealth in Europe, explained the Commission. European hospitals are, however, more advanced than US hospitals on the exchange of medical data but remain behind the US when it comes to the use of new technologies for downloading laboratory reports or radiography imaging. Information gathered in the survey will be used as a basis to the work of the Task Force and will help it establish online priority areas for action. This will particularly involve a speeding up of ePrescriptions, telemonitoring and online access to medical data. (I.L./transl.fl)