Digital "To-Do" List: New Digital Priorities for 2013-2014
The European Commission has adopted seven new priorities for the digital economy and society. The digital economy is growing at seven times the rate of the rest of the economy, but this potential is currently held back by a patchy pan-European policy framework. The priorities follow a comprehensive policy review and place new emphasis on the most transformative elements of the original 2010 Digital Agenda for Europe.
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2013 Set to Be the Busiest Year for Digital Agenda
The Digital Agenda is now entering its third year, and has already made headway towards the objectives of getting every EU citizen to use the Internet, and helping Europe's citizens and businesses get the most out of digital technologies. Since the agenda was launched, 15 million Europeans have connected for the first time, and 68 % of Europeans are now online regularly, with 170 million on social networks.
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Physio for the Home
Accidents or operations are often followed by long periods of rehabilitation treatment. In future, a new technology will allow patients to do physiotherapy exercises at home, while still making sure that they are performing movements correctly. Though the skier glides skillfully across the snow-covered landscape, still he stumbles on an icy section of the piste and loses his balance, ending his well-earned winter break in a hospital bed.
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eHealth Action Plan 2012 - 2020: Frequently Asked Questions
What is eHealth?
eHealth means using digital tools and services for health. eHealth covers the interaction between patients and health-service providers, institution-to-institution transmission of data, or peer-to-peer communication between patients and/or health professionals. Examples include health information networks, electronic health records, telemedicine services, wearable and portable personal health systems and many other information and communication technology (ICT)-based tools assisting disease prevention, diagnosis, treatment and follow up.
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Putting Patients in the Driving Seat: A Digital Future for Healthcare
The European Commission has unveiled an Action Plan to address barriers to the full use of digital solutions in Europe's healthcare systems. The goal is to improve healthcare for the benefit of patients, give patients more control of their care and bring down costs. While patients and health professionals are enthusiastically using telehealth solutions and millions of Europeans have downloaded smartphone apps to keep track of their health and wellbeing, digital healthcare has yet to reap its great potential to improve healthcare and generate efficiency savings.
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The European Commission Union Committed to Contribute to an Improved Health Security Framework
Health Ministers from the Global Health Security Initiative met in Berlin to discuss the future priorities to strengthening global health security. The Global Health Security Initiative (GHSI) is an informal, international partnership between France , Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Mexico, the United States, the European Commission and the World Health Organisation, established in 2001 to strengthen health preparedness and response globally to threats of biological, chemical, radio-nuclear terrorism (CBRN) and pandemic influenza.
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Method Developed by VTT Targets Diagnosis of Early Alzheimer's Disease
A software tool called PredictAD developed by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland promises to enable earlier diagnosis of the disease on the basis of patient measurements and large databases. Alzheimer's disease currently takes on average 20 months to diagnose in Europe. VTT has shown that the new method could allow as many as half of patients to get a diagnosis approximately a year earlier.
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