Fostering the development and implementation of national eHealth policies and strategies has been a key goal of the European Union (EU) eHealth Action Plan of 2004. To review progress made and analyse the results so far obtained by EU Member States, the European Commission just before Christmas signed a contract with Bonn-based eHealth specialist empirica. "We are more than happy that we won this prestigious project in a competitive tender, which will update part of the very comprehensive survey work undertaken earlier by the so-called eHealth ERA project" said Dr. Veli Stroetmann, senior research fellow with empirica Communication and Technology Research, who is a principal investigator for this new work. Some key results of that earlier study were summarised in the EU report on "eHealth priorities and strategies in European countries".
The objectives of the new study are to measure and assess Union Member States eHealth progress:
- whether national eHealth policies, strategies, roadmaps and/or implementation measures exist and have been updated;
- whether and to what extent the objectives defined in the European eHealth Action plan have been incorporated into them;
- what progress has been achieved, focusing on eHealth Action Plan priorities;
- which (further) national priorities and actions may support the accelerated realisation of the eHealth Action Plan.
The final output, expected during the middle of 2010, will involve a comprehensive progress report with country briefs and policy recommendations on Member States eHealth policy progress towards an interoperable European eHealth space.
Special advisor to the study and contributor will be Prof. Denis Protti of the University of Victoria, Canada, a global expert on the comparative analysis of national and regional eHealth implementations. Contributing partners are the Finnish National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL, the former STAKES), and European law firm Time.Lex CVBA as well as further expert institutes in all the more than 30 countries to be covered by this extensive research.
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About empirica
empirica Gesellschaft für Kommunikations- und Technologieforschung mbH (empirica) has many years of experience in quantitative and qualitative research methods. Its clients are private companies and public bodies: large and medium-sized companies in the insurance, pharmaceutical and automobile industries as well as software developers and hardware manufacturers. There are also telecommunications service companies and network providers, social services firms, medical facilities, Federal and State Government ministries in Germany and the European Commission as well as the European statistical office (Eurostat). For further information, please visit www.empirica.com.