English abstract
eHealth has been a key focus area in European Union policy for
over a decade. The 2004 eHealth Action Plan has set specific
targets and implementation timelines for both the European
Commission and Member States' governments. In the framework of the
recently completed eHealth ERA project, the state of eHealth policy
and deployment across the EU until the end of 2006 was mapped and
analysed. The objective was to provide background information that
can support co-ordination of Member State activities. The work of
the project presented in this report, together with other eHealth
ERA-project activities, looked for answers to the question of what
should be done in order to achieve a European Research Area for
eHealth and what should not be done if we are to avoid
failures.
Twenty seven Member States and four countries with either EEA,
accession country or other special status were included in the
report. However, when reflecting the results of our study against
the targets of the European Commission 2004 eHealth Action Plan the
main emphasis is given to analysis of the situation in the EU
Member States.
The results were first presented to the European Commission as a
deliverable of the eHealth ERA project (D2.2 - The European eHealth
policy and deployment situation by the end of 2006, Final version,
November 2007). After finalization of the project, the STAKES team
updated and revised both background information and analysis of the
material in the process of preparing this publication. The report
presents a structured overview of European eHealth policies,
initiatives, roadmaps, and deployment, synthesizing topics with
priorities common to multiple Member States.
European countries have made considerable progress in both
eHealth policy and deployment in the last five years. Nevertheless,
the spectrum of policy aims and priorities is wide, and there is
significant variation in terms of stages of deployment among EU
countries.
By the end of 2006, 25 of the 27 EU Member States and the four
other European countries represented in the EU i2010 Subgroup on
eHealth had a documented policy on eHealth, while the other two
states were in the process of finalising it. The most common
eHealth policy aims were to reform the health care system and
improve its performance for more efficiency and quality of care.
The most common eHealth tools suggested were electronic health
records or electronic patient summaries.
The main eHealth deployment areas identified were electronic
health records, patient identifiers, health portals for informing
patients and professionals on health issues and disease prevention,
citizen card activities and telemedicine. With regard to electronic
health records, there is substantial variability in development
priorities between countries.
In terms of infrastructure, regional and national eHealth
networks are operational or in planning in the majority of
countries, while the trend of expanding to international networks
is being explored. Broadband is perceived as the indispensable
technological platform of the future - already well in use in
several countries and fast-growing in others.
Services presently provided over eHealth networks vary widely,
depending on each country's overall progress. These services range
from messaging and reimbursement claims to telemedicine, booking
and consultation services and access to patient summaries or full
patient records.
There seems to be a common understanding among European states
that developing semantic interoperability of electronic patient
documentation and promoting the use of health cards can encourage
the mobility of patients and professionals. At present, 28 of 31
countries were involved in some sort of international eHealth
collaboration, but mostly on the level of policy discussions and
exchange of lessons learned. Several projects with practical goals
were identified; however international collaboration in organising
treatment of patients is not yet a routine practice.
Furthermore, although interoperability is high on the policy
agenda of many countries and work towards integrated health
information networks is well underway, issues of interoperability
still require further attention in terms of active deployment.