The past decade has been the witness of quite noticeable changes of health care by Health ICT. Nowadays, eHealth symbolises the modernisation of healthcare in support of quality of care, empowerment of patients, higher efficiency and also increased health professional job satisfaction. This has not happened by itself, rather a synergy of strategic plans, political commitments and technical developments was needed. Founded in 1999, EHTEL, the European Health Telematics Association has been an integral part and often a moderator of these achievements. Today - based on its multistakeholder membership - EHTEL provides an important platform to reflect the current situation and to look ahead into the future. Thus EHTEL also hosts the continuing expert debate, e.g. on the question "When will citizens in Europe benefit from eHealth services in their daily life".
Since January 2009, EHTELcelebrates its 10th Anniversary
For this occasion, the Board of Directors of the association has reviewed progress made over the last two decades and the prognoses for the coming one. Their conclusions will be presented in various major Health and eHealth conferences all over Europe. Moreover, in March 2009 EHTEL will publish the report "Reflections on A Decade of eHealth - the second stage in Healthcare Transformation". Likewise the presentation this report describes not only the transformation of the "Decade for eHealth" (1999 - 2009) but broadens the perspective to cover the developments from the early days before labels as "tele" and "e" arose to capture the integration of ICT into healthcare, looks at where we are today with eHealth (successes and failures, gaps in understanding and in the value business case, strategic acceptance and lessons learnt) and then takes a view forward for the next decade looking at how we can make eHealth happen in the real world, why it is important, what are the critical success factors, and a brief view of the world of eHealth at the end of the decade.
David Lloyd Williams, Member of the Board of Directors of EHTEL summarises: "There is much to do, but perhaps most of all what is required is to change our perception. eHealth is about enabling the delivery of quality care locally to people who need it, in an effective, and efficient way addressing the challenges that are taking place in society, utilising advances in medical science, and the capabilities of IT to support this."
Martin Denz, Medical Doctor and President of EHTEL, added: "Citizens perceptions are changing; these plus economic and political developments are driving the way forward. But this is not enough: we must win patients and health professionals for our cause, actively incorporating new models of health and care delivery; we have to reorient care to become a citizen oriented service with the support of all stakeholders - clinical professionals, managers, ministries, insurance companies, communities, ICT / medical & pharmaceutical industries and its experts, and last but not least the people who need our care now or in the future."
If you share EHTEL's view of the future, if you can contribute, or would like to get involved, contact the European Health Telematics Association at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
For further information, please visit:
http://www.ehtel.org
About EHTEL
EHTEL (The European Health Telematics Association) was founded in 1999 as a membership driven European association. Representing over 200 organisations and individuals who are key actors in the field of eHealth, EHTEL members include healthcare authorities & government services, healthcare professionals, patients, citizens and consumers associations; industry groups, insurers, international and national not-for-profit associations, researchers, and independent consultants.
EHTEL provides a platform to all European eHealth stakeholders in order to exchange information, to identify challenges and find solutions towards realising its goals of promoting eHealth tools to improve the quality of health for patients and citizens, access to services, efficiency of care and cost effectiveness.
EHTEL provides a number of communications services to its members, actively advocates on the above issues towards public institutions and works through established task forces to achieve these goals. For more information on EHTEL visit www.ehtel.org.
About The Three Stages of eHealth
EHTEL's review and prognosis traverses three stages of eHealth (i.e. the stage of Discovery, Acceptance and Deployment) and conclude that those will be eventually followed by a 4th stage when IT is an integral day-to-day part of the delivery, management and the benefits from care and hence the "e" prefix will consequently disappear from our language again.
The main achievement of the stage of discovery (1989-1999) was to enable and support an expert community across the European Union committed to work together, to exchange information and to initiate innovation.
The stage of acceptance (1999-2009) began with the recognition within the eHealth community that the design and implementation of new services were not going to happen by osmosis, just because of the enthusiasm of the community. The key progress of that period concerned the consolidation of the various labels into eHealth and the increasing understanding of the importance and value of eHealth - today there are few dissenters and most of the stakeholders would acknowledge this. Some Regions and Countries have pioneered that decade with large scale deployments of some limited services, providing the eHealth community with an insight into the challenges for the next decade.
The stage of deployment (2009 - 2019) will be a challenging one for healthcare. Many of the issues that have been a feature of this sector over the last twenty years will come home to roost. Cost will as ever be the prime one - how will Europe and its Member States cope with the rising cost of healthcare provision (and the financial crisis will not make this any easier). For eHealth, the crisis underlines the opportunity of investing now to keep our heads above water and taking steps forward towards 21C care.
Beyond that stage of deployment the stage of full integration of eHealth into healthcare is expected. This will be the time when "eHealth will move beyond the "e", i.e. when digital healthcare will be simply "healthcare".
More details about this review and prognosis can be found at www.ehtel.org or requested via This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
It will also be subject to several lectures to be presented to the audience of several major conferences: TeleHealth (3-6 March, Hanover), Med-e-Tel (1-3 April, Luxembourg), Vitalis (21-23 April, Gothenburg), World Health Care Congress Europe (13-14 May, Brussels) and HIT (26-28 May, Paris).