European Commission promotes e-health: The European Commission has put forward a number of proposals aimed at promoting e-health across the European Union. Among the initiatives outlined in the "e-health roadmap" are the improvement of information for patients on how to obtain treatment in another EU country; the promotion of new healthcare technologies; and the development of centres of excellence for healthcare. Among the practical applications of e-health are digital patient records, teleconsultation and e-prescribing. Interoperability of healthcare IT systems across member states will also be encouraged under the proposed action plan on e-health. "E-health will open the door to more easily accessible and better quality health care," said Erkki Liikanen, EU commissioner for enterprise and the information society. "It is not about technology, but about patients. It can reduce errors, speed up treatment and offer important cost savings."
Europe assesses open source software: An EU-backed project aimed at assessing the role of open source software in public administrations across Europe was launched in Cork, Ireland, earlier this month. The Consortium for Open Source in Public Administration (COSPA) project involves 15 partners from Ireland, the UK, Belgium, Denmark, Hungary and Italy. The consortium's brief is to study the effects of the introduction of open data standards (ODS) and open source software (OSS) on productivity and document management for European governments. The project, which will run until December 2005, has been given a grant of EUR2.6 million by the EU. As part of its analysis, the consortium will deploy ODS and OSS solutions in a number of European public administrations in order to benchmark their effectiveness. The results of the project will be discussed in a series of workshops to be held throughout Europe. More information is available at www.cospa-project.org.
US speeds up disability claims process: The US government is rolling out an electronic claims system for disability benefits that is expected to dramatically reduce the waiting time for claimants. The Social Security Administration said the Accelerated Electronic Disability System (AeDib) could cut waiting periods by up to 100 days once the system is fully operational in 2005. The electronic system aims to streamline the disability claims process, which is largely paper-based and subject to massive backlogs in claims, by allowing people to submit claims on-line and by enabling claims officers to view and share electronic folders. Currently, the claims process can take more than two years. A pilot scheme is already running in a number of states, and a nationwide rollout is under way. Last month, the SSA rejected a report released by the General Accounting Office that claimed the SSA's pilot scheme was too limited and that insufficient testing of the system had taken place.
Atos Origin wins French IT contract: IT services firm Atos Origin has been awarded a second contract for the upgrade of IT systems for the Ministry of Finance in France. Atos Origin will manage the EUR1 billion Copernic programme, which involves an overhaul of the Finance Ministry's entire fiscal IT system over eight years. The project's aims are to modernise the tools civil servants work with and to improve the efficiency of the tax administration process. The wide-ranging initiative involves more than 70 individual projects and over 600 personnel. The project has three key phases: The first involves assigning a unique fiscal account to each taxpayer, the second will enable the tracking of processed data on-line, while the third involves the implementation of a new tax recovery system.
Malta upgrades e-tax services: Malta's Inland Revenue Department has announced an upgrade to its on-line tax services. Employers and authorised tax professionals are now able to submit certain documents electronically and to view files on-line. The upgrade means that employers no longer need visit the Department's offices in person and immediate feedback on submissions is provided, meaning that errors can be spotted and rectified quickly. The Inland Revenue conducted a number of workshops for employers to help them get to grips with the new on-line tax facilities, which are available via a secure Web site once a digital certificate has been issued. Inland Revenue plans to roll out more on-line facilities later this year, including an electronic payment module and e-filing for income tax returns.
Quelle: Electric News Net, 28.04.2004
