What would eHealth bring to common citizens?

Our society is changing. However change is more than ever influenced by new technologies, including information and communication. We are in daily contact with these at home, at work and when we entertain ourselves. Of course we cannot avoid these in the health field. On the contrary, the health field is a domain where new technologies find their place rapidly and on large scale.

When we say eHealth we imagine the use of information and communication technologies for healthcare and in the health field. Information technologies are used by specialists; they are part of devices, surgery practise and hospital equipment. What kind of benefit does modern communication technology bring to patients and citizens?

Health is of highest value for each of us. People are more and more interested in health care. They are also interested in health information, how to care about health, a healthy life style and disease prevention.

Information technologies are the method to present healthcare information to citizens. For such kind of information its trustworthiness and comprehensibility is important. On the internet we can find an immense quantity of health information, information related to a healthy lifestyle, diseases, treatments, drugs and other similar information. However, only some of them are true, comprehensive and corresponding to scientific knowledge i.e. trustworthy. It is the task of government to guarantee in a certain way trustworthy sources of health field information.

The second substantial condition of information accessibility is language. The majority of health information on the internet is in English. However information in other languages, used by smaller nations is less accessible. If we want the wider public to have access to the information, we should offer such information in native languages and in simple form comprehensible even to people with a basic education.

Information processing is a substantial part of the healthcare. Modern medicine uses a huge quantity of information. One patient is being taken care of not by one doctor but several teams of specialists working in different departments, in various health-service institutions and often in various cities or countries.

It is necessary to secure that the available information is delivered to the right place on time. Information must be accessible at the place and in time when further health care decisions are made.

The path to the correct processing of health information is electronic documentation. Electronic information can be easily stored, classified and is easy for searching specific details, easily shared and transmitted. Correctly functioning health information is a prerequisite for providing quality and safe health care.

Part of health documentation is also prescription and medical certificate information. Electronic processing of prescriptions brings a series of benefits.

Firstly it is simplification of administrative procedures with the prescription, its issue, drug dispensation at the pharmacy and subsequent reimbursement by the health insurance company. The electronic form reduces risks of errors during preparation of the prescription and during its processing. It is also reduces the risk of forged prescriptions.

Secondly it is a significant support to decision making. During electronic preparation of prescriptions both the doctor and pharmacist may access much information about the drugs, their characteristics and also about what kind of drugs the patient currently taking, their prescription history and what is their mutual interaction.

Thirdly electronic prescription processing provides data necessary for evaluation of doctoral behaviour; when they prescribe drugs and behaviour of pharmacists in the event they dispense generic substitute drugs. This information may be used for education of doctors and pharmacists and as a support to the proper prescribing and dispensing of drugs. Information on prescribed and dispensed drugs shall be useful for decision making related to heath and pharmaceutical politics of the country.

The modern European health service is focused on the citizen and patient. If we want the patient to participate in decision making in the health service and also to accept share of responsibility for health behaviour, we should be providing access to patient information. Electronic processed information should be more easily accessible for the patient than hard copy.

It is patients who are most interested in quality and safety of provided health care. It is evident that availability of information and their proper processing is one of necessary conditions for provision of quality and safe health care. We have been long looking for the method of how to arrange existing information to be available at the right time in the right place, i.e. at the place where further health care of the patient is being decided.

We came to the conclusion that the best way is to provide the information to patients. It is the patients who are most often present in the place where decision are made concerning their health. At the same time it is patients who are the absolute owner of information, 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 health-service institution.

It is the challenge for the EU to create quickly standards on the basis of which in the future individual countries, individual health-service institutions and individual authors of health information systems may join a system. The result must be interoperability. Individuals, both 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 form to allow their shared use by all information systems. They must be open to compatibility with information systems outside EU.

Another topic for use of modern communication and information technologies is the field of long-term care. Our society is getting older and still 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 even uninterrupted care of relatives. New technologies allow provision of effective care at home as an alternative to the institutional care.

Technologies allow better communication with the disabled. We are aware that loneliness, calling for increased need of contact not only with nurses and doctors but also with relatives is one of strongest needs of the long-term ill. Besides simple communication, technologies may be used to aid calling, locating the position of patients with limited orientation and also for transmission of various medical information such as temperature, blood pressure and heartbeat, blood sugar levels amongst others.

We are aware of the many good reasons supporting relocation of the long-term care from institution to home. Most significant is quality of patient life, much higher if they can live at home, and on also cost efficiency. Sources are limited and there is no doubt home care is more economical than the institutional care.

We definitely should discuss many other specific applications and new possibilities. What is fundamental is that use of new possibilities provided by communication and information technologies greatly benefit health-service provision in comparison to other options. Great importance for effective use of such technologies is the interoperability. In the case that information can be transferred between individual information systems, between health-service institutions and even between countries ensures a service to the advantage of patients and the health service.

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 care better for their health. The patient may become an informed partner of the doctor during decision making about the health care and may take certain responsibility for such decisions.

eHealth tools are changing reality where we live and work in front of our eyes. 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 in favour of the health of us all.