"The goal is to get rid of the ‘e’ in eHealth"

The “SOS pilot project” is not the European Commission's only eHealth initiative. Ilias Iakovidis, deputy head of the “ICT for health” unit, talks about the broader vision of the European Commission in the eHealth arena.

Published: 05/09

PORTOROZ, SLOVENIA - (HealthTech Wire) - When did the European Commission start to become interested in eHealth?

The “ICT for health” unit has existed for about 20 years now. The main focus of our activities has always been research and development in eHealth. This is where 90 per cent of our budget goes. The second key area that we cover is policy and support for deployment, i.e. building bridges between research and actual products and services out there on the market. We finished our first big research project, “connectivity among the different points of care institutions”, back in the 1990s, demonstrating in several regions in Europe that not only do regional health networks and electronic health records save lives, they also save money and create jobs. The European eHealth action plan from 2004 builds on this research and aims to make connectivity a reality on a wide scale within the European healthcare systems. So we moved from research to deployment. In the last eight years we have focused our research efforts on personal health systems. Here, too, we are slowly moving in the direction of deployment. Now we are in the third wave of research, which is about modelling and simulating a human body and its diseases in a virtual environment or, as we say, “in silico” medicine.

How much of a problem is the diversity of Europe, especially when it comes to deployment?

Well, the future is here, but things are still very unevenly distributed. Of course the environment in Denmark is completely different from the one in Greece, to give just one example. But on average, Europe is still leading the world when it comes to regional health information networks and usage of eHealth tools in primary care. And if you take the Northern countries only, we are way ahead. We have excellent connectivity there, and eHealth services are widely used by patients and medical institutions alike.

Is it easier for the new Member States to go forward, as they can learn from previous experiences in other countries?

Unfortunately it's not as easy as that. In eHealth, a country needs some experience in legislation, so you cannot simply jump a step. The new Members States, too, have to go through a phase of learning and acquiring experience so their users can better formulate their requirements and politicians can adopt realistic roadmaps for wide-scale rollouts.

Can a European citizen actually take advantage of eHealth today?

In some Member States, yes, in others less so. The major focus so far on connectivity and infrastructure alone is not so visible to patients. It is the second level that really brings eHealth to life and closer to everybody. Once telemonitoring or health-related online services become widely available and digital images or prescriptions are sent electronically, people will start to realise what benefits eHealth can offer them. I am not saying we are there yet, but we are moving in this direction. The discussions about data protection that we're witnessing in several Member States have to be seen in this context, too: the attitude will change once people become involved or are actually cured with the help of eHealth solutions. At the moment, many of these discussion are being held in a very theoretical sphere. Once ehealth hits the streets, these issues will crystallise.

When do you think this will be?

I think ten years from now is a realistic time frame. Some Member States will be considerably quicker.

How well integrated into the whole process are medical professionals, doctors and nurses? After all, there is also a lot of scepticism.

I think we have to realise that these are very busy people. Many of them simply do not have the time to participate in events such as the one we are attending toady. So we will have to go to them. We need to go beyond the early adopters and make eHealth services mainstream in professional medicine. There are also some fears that we have to overcome. Many doctors feel that eHealth will redistribute power within the health arena. We have to build trust here, this is probably the hardest part of eHealth. We need to bring in IT as an added value for everyone, not as a tool for helping one party get the upper hand over another (e.g. managers controlling doctors).

What is your vision for eHealth 10 years from now?

What we are doing now is really just the beginning. In recent years, eHealth has been like the internet bubble. People overestimated it five years ago, and now the tendency is to underestimate it. 5 to 10 years from now, eHealth services will have become part of the daily life of many health professionals, many patients and even many healthy citizens. I hope that, in the near future, the “e” will disappear and that eHealth will become a way of life - this is what we are aiming at. The goal is for healthcare to be regarded as inextricably linked with IT. Seen this way, our mission is to “self-destruct”.

Mr. Iakovidis, thank you for your answers. (AS / PP)

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