An EU report confirmed that good progress has been made across the continent following EU member states' commitment, in the European e-Health action plan (2004), to develop a national or regional roadmap for e-Health.
"e-Health is increasingly becoming an integral element of national health system objectives. It is seen as a key enabler in wider contexts like improving the quality and efficiency of public services, or speeding up the development towards knowledge driven societies," states the report, drafted by a project entitled Towards the Establishment of a European eHealth Research Area (eHealth ERA).
According to the authors, the national plans across Europe have a high degree of consistency with the priorities stated in the EU e-Health Action Plan. However, the report says that public health issues or the need for focused eHealth training and education are rarely mentioned, except for France. "Another notable omission is attention to reimbursement and other socioeconomic aspects, such as effectiveness of resource allocation, sustainability, economic efficiency or change management, all issues which fall squarely under the member states' own authority," the report notes.
The European e-Health action plan seeks in particular to boost creation of national e-Health infrastructure systems, electronic health records and patient summaries and to ensure their interoperability.
Financing healthcare is a big burden to European social security systems and the beneficial application of information and communication technologies-enabled solutions to health and healthcare (e-Health) presents good perspectives for bringing the costs down while improving the quality of care.
