A new era in e-health

Neelie Kroes, Vice President of the European Commission and Commissioner for the Digital Agenda, explains the positive impact of ICT on the healthcare sector.

“The grand theme of our time is the need to do more with less. Improving e-health systems is one of the best ways we can address this challenge”
-Neelie Kroes

As European Commissioner responsible for the Digital Agenda, I have publicly stated that one of my priorities will be to accelerate the positive impact of ICT on everyday life. In that vision, e-health will play a key part.

There are many reasons for this. Latest research indicates that 29 percent of the EU's population will be over 65 years old in 2050. And we are battling the deepest financial crisis in decades. These facts are not news - but combined, they tell us that great innovations will be needed to keep people healthy and comfortable in the coming decades. The grand theme of our time is the need to do more with less. Improving e-health systems is one of the best ways we can address this challenge.

At the practical level, powerful truths are lined up in support of e-health. Chronic disease management already accounts for seven out of every 10 euros spent on healthcare. Knowing this is the area where e-health has the most potential, it would be foolish not to make the most out of it. I know all too well that it is easier to talk about these problems than it is to fix them. But the point remains that the next few years represent a huge opportunity.

The Commission has promoted and co-funded research in ICT for health for more than two decades. This has translated into more than 450 collaborative projects involving partners from all Europe, and more than €1 billion in funding. In addition to saving lives and containing costs, this has helped to build a growing industry turning over €15 billion per year. And this is the fastest growing market in the health sector.

This is good, but to truly harness this trend we must explore new avenues. For example, I see e-health as a way to offer more control for patients on their own health. Already today, people go and look for health information on the internet - often before they even speak to their doctor. Some say we should fight this trend; I say we should make the most of it. Simply, patients must now find their doctor on the internet. And the proof that this works is in our early success with telemedicine.

I also see e-health as a means to achieving economic recovery. E-health is the fastest growing part of healthcare. And ICT is one of the main innovation factors of the pharmaceutical and medical devices industries - two industries traditionally strong in Europe. So this is also about new jobs and successful businesses, and taxpayer savings. E-health builds on two of the best assets of Europe: its health systems, and its technologies.

E-health also requires collaboration among all players in the healthcare sector. There is no single actor - government, doctor, patient or manufacturer - setting the terms of e-health. Instead, success will only come from a truly joint effort.

That last point is an important one. E-health has great potential, but we need each other to realise that potential. In my mind, the technology is more mature than the market. Yet we have already come a long way - and I value that. For example, our 2004 E-health Action Plan helped to test and expand our boundaries - showing that political co-operation at the European level was possible. After that, the Lead Market Initiative has helped us to understand the true potential for the growth of e-health markets. And now we are seeing that large-scale projects such as epSOS enable continuity of care across national borders. We are ready to work with and support all member states in epSOS or similar large-scale actions.

But we need to do more. Take, for example, the E-health Governance Initiative. This initiative consolidates not only new ways of working with governments across Europe, but also with stakeholders. In my view that delivers two crucial things to the field: 1) the predictability; and 2) the transparency that is so critical in enabling large groups of interests to work together.

Yet I am fully aware of just how difficult it will be to achieve this agenda. To bring about change, we will need to convince various layers of governments and policy areas, but also many industries and stakeholders - in particular health professionals and patients. We need to be pragmatic; I do not want to leave anyone behind. The economics of healthcare gives us all a mutual interest. In addition to better patient care, we all stand to either save or make money from the full development of e-health. This is a very powerful driver for co-operation.

Earlier in March, the Commission issued its all-encompassing strategy for the years to come, Europe 2020. In April, I will unveil the ICT chapter of this strategy, the Digital Agenda for Europe. It will be our vision of how ICT can shape Europe by 2015 - and be assured that e-health will play an integral part of our ambition to make Europe a truly sustainable digital society. My intention for the Digital Agenda is to propose clear objectives and specific targets. I believe we must focus on concrete goals to mobilise and address the legal and organisational barriers that are holding back innovation in Europe. In doing so, we must also ensure we do not compromise the values we believe in - the quality of our care and the privacy any individual is entitled to.

A key for success is to create pan-European interoperability between the various initiatives that emerge here and there. E-health is a very good example of that.

I have been inspired by examples such as the epSOS project. With 12 member states on board (and hopefully more to join soon) and 31 industry partners, epSOS shows we can set the bar high and clear it.

To me this is important because I don't want to see us get stuck at the stage of delivering 'only' electronic patient records. That is, no doubt, a huge challenge in itself. But we need also to work together to deliver tools for patients that prevent health problems and personalise their healthcare. To give just one example, wearable and portable personal health systems should be mainstreamed to become standard care. We can't allow today's difficulties to distract us from these long-term outcomes.

We made the right investments over 20 years to become the world leader in e-health. The investments worked because we took them early and we took them together.

Now it is time to step up another gear. Our finances demand it. Our citizens expect it. The technology is ripe. We are all rightly proud of our health systems in Europe. We have every reason to be proud to be working towards e-health for all.