What would e-Health bring to common citizens?

Our society is constantly changing. However, modern changes are influenced more than ever by new technologies, including those in information and communication. We are in daily contact with these new technologies at home, at work and when we entertain ourselves. Of cour se, we therefore cannot avoid these technological developments in the health field. On the contrary, the health field is a domain where new technologies find their place rapidly and on a broad scale.

When we say e-Health, we imagine the use of information and communication technologies f or health care and throughout the health sector. Information technologies are used by specialists as part of devices, surgery practises and hospital equipment. Yet, what kind of benefit does modern communication technology bring to patients and citizens? Health is of the highest value for each of us. People are becoming more and more interested in health care especially with regards to general health information, how to care for their health and how to prevent disease and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Information technologies are the new method of presenting health care information to citizens. For such types of information, trustworthiness and comprehensibility are extremely important. On the internet, an immense quantity of health information can be found including information related to healthy living, disease, treatment and drugs.
However, not all the information is factual, comprehensive and correlates to a scientific knowledge base. It is one of the tasks of governments to guarantee the accuracy of sources in the health sector.

Download document: E-QUALITY IN E-HEALTH - Stakeholders' reflections on adressing e-health challenges at the European level.

The second substantial condition for information accessibility is language. The majority of health information on the internet is in English. However, information in other languages, used by smaller nations, remains less accessible. If we want the wider public to have access to the information, we must offer such information in native languages and in simpler forms comprehensible even to those with a basic education. Inf or mat ion processing is also a substantial part of health care. Modern medicine encompasses a huge quantity of information. One patient is being taken care
of not by one doctor, but by several teams of specialists working in different departments, in various health-service institutions and often in various cities or countries.

It is necessary to ensure that the available information is delivered to the right place on time. Information must
be accessible where it is needed and in a timely manner so that further health care decisions can be made. The path to the best practice of processing of health information is through electronic documentation.

Electronic information can easily be stored, shared, transmitted and classified and allows for specific detailed searches. Likewise, the accurate processing of health information is a prerequisite for providing
high quality healthcare. Also par t of health documentation, electronic processing of prescriptions and
medical certificate information could also bring a series of benefits.

Firstly, electronic processing allows for the simplification of administrative procedures pertaining to prescriptions, drug dispensation at the pharmacy and subsequent reimbursement by health insurance companies. The electronic form reduces the risk of error during prescription preparation and during its processing. It is also reduces the risk of forged prescriptions.

Secondly, electronic processing provides significant support to the decision making process. During electronic preparation of prescriptions, both the doctor and pharmacist may access much needed information about the drugs, their characteristics and also information on the various drugs the patient is currently taking in addition to their prescription history in order to better understand the complete patient profile.

Thirdly, electronic prescription processing provides the data necessary for the evaluation of doctoral behaviour by providing a record of the drugs prescribed by doctors and the subsequent distribution by pharmacists of generic substitute drugs. This information may be used for educating doctors and pharmacists and as a supportive measure to the proper prescribing and dispensing of drugs. Information on prescribed and dispensed drugs could be extremely useful for decision making related to health and the pharmaceutical politics of the country.The modern European health service is focused on the citizen and the patient.

If we want the patient to participate in decision making in the health service and also to accept some share of responsibility for health behaviour, we should be providing access to patient information. Electronically processed information should be more easily accessible for the patient than hard copies.

It is patients who are most interested in the quality and safety of provided health care. It is therefore evident that the availability of information and its proper processing is one of the necessary conditions for the provision of quality and safe health care.

We have spent considerable time looking for the method of how to arrange existing information in order to be available at the right time in the right place, i.e. at the place where the further health care of the patient is being decided.

We came to the conclusion that the best way is to provide the information directly to patients. It is the patients who are most often present in the place where decisions are made concerning their health. At the same time it is patients who are the absolute owner of confidential personal data and only patients should decide whom they provide such sensitive information to. Therefore, we see the future process as a combination of an electronic health record - electronic health documentation created and administered by the health-service institution and a personal health record of patients owned by the patient, which can be distributed by patients at their discretion. It is clear that the personal health record should mirror the health documentation of the patient maintained by each healthservice institution.

It is a challenge for the EU to quickly create standards on the basis of which individual countries, individual health-service institutions and individual authors of health information systems may all contribute. The result must be interoperability. Individuals, patients and health-service staff must be easily identifiable across the whole EU. Data stored in individual information systems must be stored in such a way as to allow their shared use by all information systems. They must also be open to compatibility with information systems outside the EU.Another topic for use of modern communication and information technologies is the field of long-term care. Our society is getting older and more of our citizens need long-term care. The number of persons living alone is increasing as well as the number dependant on daily or uninterrupted care of relatives. New technologies allow the provision of effective care at home as an alternative to institutional care.

Technologies also allow better communication with the disabled. We are aware of the impact of loneliness and the need for contact with not only nurses and doctors but also relatives is an imperative need of the long-term ill. Besides simple communication, technologies may be used for aid calling, locating the position of patients with limited orientation and for transmitting medical information such as temperature, blood pressure, heartbeat and blood sugar levels.

We understand the many good reasons for supporting the relocation of long-term care patients from institution to home.

Most significant is quality of patient life, much higher if they can live at home, in addition to the benefits of cost efficiency. Sources are limited and there is no doubt that home care is more economical than institutional care.

It is important that we discuss many other specific applications and new possibilities deriving from modern technology. Even more fundamental is that the use of the new possibilities provided by communication and information technologies greatly benefit health-service provisions in comparison to other options. Of great importance for effective use of such technologies is interoperability. In case that information can be transferred between individual information systems, between healthservice institutions and even between countries, ensures an advantageous service to both patients and the health sector.

Information and communication technologies should, in principle, realign the position of the citizen in the health care system. Access to information gives opportunity to all to better care for their health. The patient may become an informed partner of the doctor during decision making procedures about their health and then may take on more responsibility for such decisions.

E-Health tools are changing reality where we live and work. It is not important whether we agree with this reality or not. What is important is how fast we are able to adapt to the changing world and use its benefits to ensure better health for us all.