José Luis Monteagudo Peña, Oscar Moreno Gil
The content of this monograph is the result of tasks performed in the context of the eHealth ERA project funded under the EC Information Technologies for Health activities of the EU Sixth Framework Programme. This monograph reviews the state of eHealth applications serving to enhance the role of the patients in the healthcare context. The study has been based on a quite broad collection of practical implementations across Europe.

This document presents preliminary outcomes of an ongoing study entitled "ICT & Ageing - Users, Markets and Technologies". This two year research endeavour was launched in the beginning of 2008 by the European Commission, DG Information Society and Media. The general background to this study derives from the trend towards accelerating population ageing as it has been observed across Europe and beyond for some time already.

For the last two decades the European Commission (EC), and in particular the Directorate General Information Society and Media, has been strongly supporting the application of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in healthcare. ICT is an enabling technology which can provide various solutions in the healthcare sector, ranging from electronic patient records and health information networks to intelligent prosthetics and robotised surgery.

Over the past 150 years, the advancements in medicine, public health and the delivery of care have been nothing short of breathtaking. We routinely achieve feats that were virtually unthinkable even a generation ago. But one facet persists: paper. We have yet to find a way to move beyond paper record keeping. However, electronic prescribing (eprescribing) is a technology whose time has come.

Around the world, healthcare delivery systems are increasingly focused on creating regional and national Electronic Health Records (EHR). The sharing of clinical information increases the accessibility of important health information, can reduce costs through elimination of duplicate tests and prescriptions, and most importantly, improves the quality of care. The availability of such information in emergency situations can literally save lives.

This work programme (WP) defines the priorities for the calls for proposals to be launched in the period 2008-09. Projects resulting from these calls will start having an impact on markets in the 2015-20 timeframe. By then, the global ICT/knowledge infrastructure - networks, devices, services - as well as the market structures, value chains and business models are likely to have changed considerably from today's situation. The research challenges in this WP are expressed with this in mind.

This new study about ICT standards in the health sector by empirica provides a structured overview of eHealth standards development and uptake in a European context, paying special attention to standards for electronic health records. The study was commissioned by the European Commission's Directorate General Enterprise and Industry and explores the current status of ICT health standardisation processes and their future potential. Key findings include the following: