6 - 8 April 2011, Luxembourg.European Commission awards grants to the three best abstracts presented from developing countries to the Global eHealth Strategy Symposium. In order to promote research and participation on eHealth of developing countries, the European Commission Directorate-General Information Society will fund 3 researchers' expenses to present their projects during Med-e-Tel 2011.
Information and communication technologies (ICT) are potentially powerful instruments to strengthen health systems, with innovations ranging from electronic health records to information system already transforming healthcare. These technologies show great promise in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) whose health systems face severe financial, infrastructural, technical and human resource constraints. The potential of mHealth and eHealth, as highly practical applications of ICT in healthcare for resource-constrained environments, becomes obvious when considering the following facts:
- At least 80% of the world's population lives in areas with mobile phone coverage, providing a technology platform for mHealth applications.
- By 2012, half of all individuals in remote areas of the world will have mobile phones.
In addition, the strategic use of ICT is seen as a tool for achieving the internationally agreed development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
In parallel, the EU has now a new policy framework in Global Health which for the first time brings together internal and external policies around the objective of improving the EU collective contribution to global health. This Communication aims to contribute to improve governance at global and national levels. In this context, the EU will work to enhance its current work on data collections on health care with relevant national and international bodies such as WHO, the OECD and the Health Metrics Network, to improve health information systems and the collection of comparable data and statistics to allow benchmarking and inform global, European and national policies. The EU will also continue to promote the use of ICT, including eHealth. The Communication also provides an opportunity to better link EU efforts in advancing health knowledge with global needs and, in turn, to better link this knowledge and evidence with our dialogues on health policies.
Finally, in the context of the Joint Africa-EU Strategy (JAES) and its Partnership on Science, Information Society and Space, e-health has been identified as a priority domain and a political commitment. As far as implementation is concerned, the objective is to promote co-ordination among all public-private stakeholders, in order to avoid fragmentation of initiatives, dilution of resources and therefore maximising impact on the ground.
Objectives
Global ehealth Strategy Symposium aims to provide an intercultural and multidisciplinary framework in order to:
- Promoting policy dialogue on how ehealth can address issues and challenges in the field of health in developing countries,
- Analysing transferability of evidences, barriers and factors for a useful deployment of ehealth through research projects.
Deadline for the submission of the abstratcs: 10 January 2011
1. All abstracts submitted will be evaluated by the Med-e-Tel Scientist Committee (this includes abstracts that have already been submitted in the past weeks before the initial December 10th deadline, as well as newly submitted abstracts before the new January 10th deadline). The three best projects from developing countries will be selected.
2. EC will participate as observer in the selection processes.
3. The decision will be communicated to the researchers by 17 January 2011.
4. The grant consists of travel, accommodation and registration fee for the main researcher of the project.
5. EC will contact the winners to manage the logistic tasks. Visa application and/or any other administrative requirements shall be managed by the researchers themselves according to current rules.
6. The projects shall be presented during the EC symposium "Global eHealth Strategy" organised at the Med-e-tel 2011 conference.
For questions regarding the submission of abstracts and the educational program, please feel free to contact Dr. Malina Jordanova, Educational Program Coordinator, tel: +359 2 979 32 02, or e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
For general information regarding Med-e-Tel and sponsorship/exhibition opportunities, please contact Frederic Lievens, International Coordinator, tel: +32 2 269 84 56, mobile: +32 478 59 36 99, fax: +32 2 269 79 53, or e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
For further information, please visit:
http://www.medetel.eu
Related news articles:
- Med-e-Tel's Profile
About Med-e-Tel
Med-e-Tel focuses on ehealth and telemedicine applications and a wide range of other medical ICT applications and on the convergence of information and communication technology with medical applications, which lead to higher quality of care, cost reductions, workflow efficiency, and widespread availability of healthcare services.
The "Med" in Med-e-Tel stands for healthcare services (institutional and home based care, prevention and education) and for medical products and equipment (medical imaging equipment, monitoring devices, electronic health records, etc.).
The "e" stands for the electronic and IT industry and services (hard- & software, internet, e-mail, etc.).
The "Tel" stands for telecommunications (whether it is POTS, ISDN, wireless, satellite, videoconferencing, VoIP, or other).
For further information, please visit www.medetel.eu.