Integração Europeia de Projectos eHealth

In their first informal meeting, EU healthcare state secretaries agreed to form a new formal body, aimed at aligning national eHealth systems. This should help facilitate cross-border care for European citizens. The meeting was held in the run-up to the eHealth 2009 Ministerial conference in Prague on February 18, 2009.

The formal body will include representatives from all Member States who will “take into account all views at a higher political level,” said Marek Snajdr, the first Deputy Minister of Health for the Czech Republic, during a press conference. Mr. Snajdr disclosed some basic information about the “formal body”, revealing that it would serve as an umbrella organization to provide a communications platform for eHealth interoperability. He further stated that the body would be dedicated to establishing data protection standards.

Asked by HealthTech Wire if he expected the body to be able to address strong resistance at national level to the implementation of some tried and tested eHealth solutions, Mr. Snajdr said that this was exactly the reason why the body had been founded.

“We would like the body to create a political arena and environment to convince stakeholders that eHealth is beneficial. It might help implementations at national level if all stakeholders see that there is international coordination,” Snajdr said. He added that in the case of his own country, it was very difficult to implement the legislation needed for the storage of ePrescription data. “If we succeed in creating common standards in terms of data protection, this will be good for everyone,” he said.

Snajdr outlined that the variety and incompatibility of eHealth systems used across Europe as well as the different stages of implementation are the main adoption barriers. Another critical aspect is that many people are wary of eHealth solutions and are afraid of innovation. “Politicians must address these concerns,” Snajdr said.

The informal meeting of the state secretaries concluded that the barriers to adopting eHealth were similar across all EU countries. International coordination should now avoid the addition of new barriers and ensure that all systems become interoperable while also adequately involving all stakeholders – at a technical, professional and political level.

The conclusions of the informal meeting of the state secretaries will be discussed during the ministerial council in June 2009.


Note: Source – HealthTech Wire. This article has been published on 19 February 2009 in the European Commission’s ICT for Health GoDirect channel at www.healthtechwire.com/ictforhealth.