By Daniel Castro, The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF).
Greater use of information technology (IT) in health care can help achieve many health care reform goals. Health IT can improve the effectiveness and efficiency of health care by reducing costs, improving the quality of care, and increasing access to health care services and information.

New European population projections for 2008-2060, published by the European Office for Statistics, has recently underlined that the number of elderly persons will quickly increase. From 2015 on, deaths are projected to outnumber births in the EU27 and almost three times as many people will be aged 80 or more in 2060. This demographic development and the ageing of European populations will lead to a growing number of older people living alone and in need of (intensive) care,

An Oracle White Paper.
This White Paper provides an Information Technology approach that can deliver the situational awareness and decision support necessary for the healthcare industry reform movement to meet the challenges and opportunities faced by a country with the greatest healthcare infrastructure and largest expenditures in the world to deliver more effective care delivery across a broader patient community.

Article of the Month!

How innovations in eHealth can improve medical care, increase efficiency, and create new jobs.
Developed economies are already finding it hard to maintain standards of healthcare on existing budgets. Now payers are facing a huge dose of extra cost as, building on advances in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, imaging, diagnostics and other fields, medical technology is delivering the potential for new treatments and diagnostics.

The present White Paper describes the legal framework conditions and technical requirements for the creation of electronic time stamps and also examines the differences between qualified and non-qualified time stamps, for differentiation purposes termed "other time stamps" below.

This special issue reflects the diversity of people involved in developing eHealth and integrating it to healthcare policies. Mobilising all these people and coordinating their actions, at a regional, national and European level, is essential in order for eHealth to realise its potential. The introduction of ITCs in the healthcare field is giving rise to many expectations and questions which will be discussed in this issue.

Article of the Month!

Ingo Meyer, Tobias Hüsing, Maike Didero, Werner B. Korte
This report presents the results of the eHealth Benchmarking study carried out by empirica on behalf of the European Commission, DG Information Society and Media. The study aimed to collate and analyse existing eHealth monitoring and benchmarking sources in order to identify best practice in data gathering and to develop a framework for an EU-wide eHealth Benchmarking approach.