IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

Telemedicine is the diagnosis, consultation, monitoring, or transferring of encrypted medical data via telecommunication services and therefore, it is important to set continuing educational standards for physicians who seek to practice it. Before raising all other questions there might be about the use and effectiveness of telehealth, patients first must be confident that it is safe.

E-Health refers to all forms of healthcare delivered on the Internet, ranging from informational, educational and commercial “products” to direct services offered by professionals, non-professionals, businesses or consumers themselves. It includes a wide variety of the clinical activities that have traditionally characterised Telehealth, but are delivered through the Internet.

"Everybody talks about environment protection, but nobody remembers the people living there," Ricardo Hidalgo, dean of the university's health science faculty, told Radio Quito.

The government is following up on the telemedicine (remote medical diagnosis) initiative in which patients are diagnosed by physicians at any time and place with the assistance of a series of technological applications and gadgets

The initiative provides medical consultations on telemedicine applications in coordination between the ministries of health, higher education, and communication.

eHealth is a broad definition for a variety of technologies and services, from electronic health records to telecare systems that enable patients to be treated remotely while staying in the comfort of their own homes. But while the implementation and application of eHealth systems may vary, the overriding goal is fundamentally the same: using ICT to provide better care more efficiently at lower cost.

Inwiefern via Telemedizin heute bereits konkret die Zukunft gestaltet wird, darüber berichten Experten und Praktiker auf der Tagung der ZTG Zentrum für Telematik im Gesundheitswesen GmbH. Über die Telemedizin auf dem Weg zur Regelversorgung äußert sich Staatssekretär Prof. Dr. Stefan Winter im Rahmen der ZTG-Tagung am 27. Mai im Haus der Ärzteschaft in Düsseldorf.

Information and communications technology (ICT) and in particular satellite communications can enable the timely delivery of care, training and educational content, perform epidemic surveillance and support health system administration over the vast distances involved in the region.

The two-year, 179,000 euro project is a joint effort of the University of Tartu and the Riga-based Pauls Stradins Clinical University Hospital and will involve three hospitals in southern Estonia and one in Latvia.

The system, developed by the Estonian e-Health Foundation, simplifies the patient’s registration process for doctor appointments and makes medicine shopping easier. The cross-country e-registration system gives the list of all the doctors and health services around Estonia so the patient can choose the most convenient one and provides patient information exchange for doctors.

Under a Communication backed by the EU this week, member states will seek to boost public confidence in remote medicine by encouraging scientists to promote its benefits and cost effectiveness.

The Care Services Improvement Partnership (CSIP) has listed more than 20 potential problems faced by organisations commissioning and integrating telecare into health, housing and social services.

The aim is to improve access to telemedicine services for hospitals in the Alpine region.

In Garmisch-Partenkirchen last January, project leaders came together to present and discuss the status of the project from which patients all over the Alpine area should benefit in the future.

Eight hospitals from five countries in the Alpine region will now work together in the "Access and Networking in the Alpine Region" to improve access to telemedicine services for hospitals.

The initiative involves care organisations from Austria, France, Germany, Italy and Slovenia - as well as the non-EU member, Switzerland. It has been subsidised from 2009 until 2012 by the Alpine Space Programme, the EU transnational cooperation programme for the Alps.

Driven by the broad availability of mobile devices and health apps of all kinds, telemedicine is taking the center stage as a game changer when it comes to patient engagement, care coordination and extending the reach of care. The fast-growing trend has gained a lot of interest from provider organizations in the U.S. as well as in Europe, as evidenced by the first European Telemedicine Conference that was held in Edinburgh, Scotland on Oct. 29 and 30. The four organizations behind the event—the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), HIMSS Europe, Odense University Hospital in Denmark, and NHS 24 Scottish Centre for Telehealth and Telecare—describe the conference as a platform for all stakeholders to share success stories and challenges across borders.

Healthcare today makes extensive use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and wide-area networks are used to exchange medical reports and images. Thus care can be extended to mobile patients and to the patient's homes by using telemonitoring and teleconferencing facilities. Real-time teleconsulting, remote diagnosis, clinical data transmission and multimedia medical content are particularly needed when the access to medical services is difficult like in geographically isolated or distant locations. Also medical training and the further education of health professionals benefit from real-time transmission of medical interventions and results like histology images.

The aim of the SAFE project is to provide a means of satellite assistance, from remote locations, in the event of natural disasters and for post-crisis management.

In order to pilot the system, the ESA’s health team flew out to the Greek island of Crete to see if the system works.

The industry believes that telehealth solutions must be developed at EU and national level to help combat growing financial and staff shortages in the European health sector.

However, it highlights several weaknesses within the current legal systems. COCIR, an industry group representing the healthcare IT sector, has called on the European Commission and member states to establish a single legal framework to overcome problems such as licensing, liability and cross-border jurisdiction.