Fostering eHealth Deployment: the two eHealth communities ePractice Communities Workshop Brussels

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Fostering eHealth Deploymentthe two eHealth
communities ePractice Communities
WorkshopBrussels 16 June 2010
Roberto Giampieretti European Commission, DG
INFSO ICT for Health
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Contents

1. ICT for Health What do we do?
2. ePractice Why two Communities on eHealth?
3. Half a year down the road Are they meeting our
   expectations?
4. How to get the best out of them?

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Who are we?ICT for Health Unit, Information
Society and Media DGEuropean Commission

• Supported gt 500 eHealth projects with gt 1
  Billion since 1989
• Current support (ca 100 Mil/year)
• Major focus in the 90s
• Regional Health Information Networks, Electronic
  Health Records, Homecare/telemedicine
• Todays focus
• I) Research
• Personal health systems (wearable, portable
  monitoring)
• Patient safety (Clinical information systems for
  safer outcomes)
• Modelling and Simulation of diseases (Virtual
  Physiological Human)
• II) Policy and support to deployment
• eHealth Action plan, Lead Market Initiative,
• Recommendation on Interoperability, Deployment of
  Telemedicine
• Large Scale Pilots, certification of Electronic
  Health Record Systems

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Continuity of care enabled by eHealth
Prevention
Diagnosis Care
Rehabilitation
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The EU roadmap for eHealth
1990s
Today
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Step 1 Linking all the points of care
Secure data networks and interoperable applicat
ions
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Step 2 Connecting individuals with Health
Information Networks
Data communication and feedback
Data acquisition
Data processing analysis
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Step 3 Towards the full picture of the
individuals health status

• Reproduce Anatomical and Functional properties of
  physiological systems at various scales
• molecules, proteins, cells, tissues, organs,
  systems, body, etc.
• Integrate Geometry, Physics, Chemistry,
  Physiology
• Help understand normal or pathological
  evolutions
• systems Cardio-vascular, Central Nervous,
  Digestive, Reproductive, etc.

N. Ayache, INRIA
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European Digital Agenda 19-5-2010

• Key Action 13 Undertake pilot actions to equip
  Europeans with secure online access to their
  medical health data by 2015 and to achieve by
  2020 widespread deployment of telemedicine
  services
• Key Action 14 Propose a recommendation defining
  a minimum common set of patient data for
  interoperability of patient records to be
  accessed or exchanged electronically across
  Member States by 2012
• Other actions
• Foster EU-wide standards, interoperability
  testing and certification of eHealth systems by
  2015 through stakeholder dialogue

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EC funding instruments
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eHealth deploymentin the European Union

• Over 22 countries have explicit eHealth policy
  strategies, but

www.ehealth-era.org
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EC wide strategy for eHealth
5. Communication on Telemedicine (2008)
4. EC Recommendation on EHR Interoperability
(2008)
3. Lead Market initiative for Europe (eHealth)
2. eHealth Action Plan - COM(2004)356 final
1. Research (FP) and Demonstration Programmes
(eTEN/CIP)
ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/health
/policy/index_en.htm
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The two eHealth Communities

• ePractice Why two Communities on eHealth?
• Telemedicine Forum
• eHealth Procurers Forum

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Procurement of eHealth solutions

1. Deployment of eHealth services on a large scale
   is still at an embryonic stage in most of he EU
   member states. Innumerable are the pilot
   projects, but few are the solutions coming out
   from such pilots as services addressing the
   citizens on a regular basis and on a large scale.

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Procurement of eHealth solutions

1. If today specifying and procuring ICT systems for
   hospitals is a relatively easier task than in the
   recent past, actual interoperability of the
   solutions offered on the market is still far from
   being a widespread reality. Nevertheless,
   interoperability is a key word for the
   administrations of the local and regional health
   authorities, when planning their eHealth
   investments.

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Procurement of eHealth solutions

1. Even more complex is the situation related to
   designing and procuring telemedicine systems and
   services, an area where health authorities often
   opt for complete outsourcing of the target
   services or of full sections of the target
   processes, but they have limited tools for making
   robust decisions in the framework of systematic
   application of HTA methodologies.

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Procurement of eHealth solutions

1. Nevertheless, there exist relevant experiences
   and initiatives proving that the above mentioned
   complexities can be managed and successfully
   overcome, gaining over time the planned return on
   the investments made.

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Procurement of eHealth solutions

• A study initiative is going to be launched aimed
  at
• Analysing why procuring eHealth solutions is
  difficult
• Starting a process for building guidelines useful
  to procurers in their job of implementing eHealth
  on a large scale.

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What do we expect from the eHealth Procurers
Forum?

• Help us identify significant procurement
  initiatives in the eHealth sector
• Help us identify relevant key persons in the
  procurement line of work
• Bring our policy initiatives to the attention of
  the above key persons
• Boost the participation of the key persons in our
  workshops on eHealth Procurement

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Limits and difficulties in our usage of the
Communities

• Continuous monitoring Significant person power
  is to be dedicated within the Unit
• Small numbers The eHealth Communities have so
  far attracted limited numbers of persons
• Content management The specificity of the topic
  (eHealth Procurement) requires special attention
  in selecting contents and initiatives
• Loose link with the consolidated stakeholders of
  the specific sector
• Loose link with daily activity in policy
  development

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How to get the best out of them?

• The concept remains appealing for policy
  development
• A personalised approach customised on the
  specific needs of our Unit could be explored
• Some wiki functionalities on the published
  material could be an additional value
• Looking forward to the forthcoming workshop on
  Procurement of eHealth solutions to be held in
  October.

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Thank you !
roberto.giampieretti_at_ec.europa.eu http//ec.europa
.eu/information_society/activities/health/policy/t
elemedicine http//www.epractice.eu Disclaimer
The views developed in this presentation are
those of the author and do not reflect
necessarily the official position of the European
Commission on the subject matter