News
European Commission supports access to telemedicine across Europe
6 November 2008
The European Commission has adopted a Communication to support and
improve access to telemedicine for EU citizens and healthcare
professionals across Europe.
In response to a call for action from Member States, this initiative
aims to increase and broaden telemedicine services, including remote diagnosis,
treatment and monitoring across Europe.
Such services will
allow, for example, a patient suffering from a rare retinal disease to
be diagnosed in his hometown by a specialist working at a European
Centre of Excellence for eye diseases located thousands of kilometres
away. Patients with chronic heart failure will be able to have their
disease more closely monitored and to enjoy better quality of life while
staying at home. The European Commission proposes 10 actions to address
the related challenges in the years to come.
"Telemedicine can radically improve chronically ill patients' quality
of life and give people access to top medical expertise. It is our duty
to make sure patients and health professionals can benefit from it,"
said Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media.
"At the same time, the provision of remote healthcare services through
ICT can optimise the use of scarce human and financial resources in the
medical field."
EU Health Commissioner, Androulla Vassilou expressed her belief that:
"Telemedicine tools can indeed deliver improvements both in quality of
care and patient safety as well as increase access to healthcare. This
means both better services for citizens, and more innovative and
efficient health services. The key to success is the full involvement of citizens, patients and health
professionals."
In an ageing Europe, where more and more citizens live with chronic
health diseases, telemedicine is an important tool. Despite the
potential benefits that telemedicine can provide, its use is still
limited in most parts of the EU.
For instance, telemedicine allows the monitoring of important health
parameters (such as blood sugar levels or blood pressure) to be carried
out from the patient's home, avoiding troublesome and — particularly for
the sick or elderly — exhausting trips to a doctor or hospital. It can
improve access to specialised treatment in remote areas where access to
healthcare is difficult. It can also contribute to shortening waiting
lists, for example in radiology, when reading and interpretation of
medical images, such as radiographs (xrays) or computed tomography (CT)
scans, can be performed at a distance.
Furthermore, telemedicine, which is already a multi-billion global
industry, can contribute substantially to the growth of the European
economy. European industry, especially SMEs, can tap the financial and
clinical benefits from this expanding market, provided that barriers to
development such as market fragmentation and legal aspects are
addressed.
The actions proposed by the Commission are:
- to increase confidence and acceptance of telemedicine services
among users. In particular, by encouraging provision and
dissemination of scientific evidence of its effectiveness and cost
effectiveness;
- to bring legal clarity on existing EU legislation regarding
telemedicine services and encourage Member States to improve
provision of telemedicine services; and
- to solve technical problems such as the lack of
adequate community-wide broadband infrastructure and interoperability of
telemedicine devices.
European Commission Information Society telemedicine portal:
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/health/policy/
telemedicine/index_en.htm
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