Budapest (H), 10th May 2011
Following the invitation of the European Commission, the AER [email protected] network organised a forum to showcase regional expertise in the e-health field. This event took place in the framework of the e-health week in Budapest, a major conference that gathered politicians, health administrators, researchers and industries in order to discuss future priorities for e-health. The forum’s participants emphasised the major role played by regions in the deployment of personal e-health solutions by highlighting the progress achieved for chronic pathologies such as diabetes, cardio-vascular and obstructive pulmonary diseases.
European regions and telemedicine: substantial progresses
In order to respond to the challenges currently faced by our society, the European regions have to develop inventive and simple tools to satisfy the patients’ needs.
Auvergne’s (F) “Tele-Diabètes” project allows for example people suffering from diabetes, for example, to calculate their insulin dose by themselves, thanks to an electronic device, after recording personal data such as their glucose ratio before and after each meal.
Syddanmark (DK) presented its project “ePatch”, aiming to answer the needs of health professionals, as well as those of the patients – financial restrictions, patients’ will to stay longer at home, lack of health professionals. Easy to use, this patch will enable continuous control of the patient’s cardiac activity and will set up an alarm system based on several clinical research studies.
Work for the recognition of e-health
“Whereas the amount of people suffering from chronic diseases keeps increasing, our knowledge has allowed us to make important technologic advances. Our goal is to make sure that e-health is integrated in public health policies. In order to do so, we need to put forward the issue of change management” said Agneta Granström, President of AER’s [email protected] Network and regional councillor of Norrbotten (S), adding that “the future of e-health and its generalisation in Europe lays in the regions”.
A debate between regional politicians, patients’ organisations and industries sought to identify solutions allowing to spread the success of regional projects to the whole of Europe. Indeed, even if the use of telemedecines is becoming more widespread in the European continent, some obstacles still prevent its full deployment. The absence of a reimbursement scheme for e-health solutions, the lack of awareness regarding existing solutions or the dilemma of the development of an e-health market have thus been identified as the main problems.
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