The European Commission's Directorate Information Society and Media played a key role in
facilitating and focussing discussions on key topics in eHealth such as patient safety, standards
harmonisation, industry activities or the healthcare professionals' experience with health
ICT. All sessions benefited from the input of high calibre speakers and chairs and triggered
lively debates. 
Belgium, 6 March 2008.
A mini symposium on telenursing will be part of this year's Med-e-Tel. Telenursing is defined by the International Council of Nurses as "the use of telecommunications technology in nursing to enhance patient care". A growing application, telenursing offers possibilities to reduce the use of expensive healthcare services, to reduce hospital admissions or length of stay, to perform regular check-ups on patients with chronic conditions, to spread limited resources over a large population, and to increase access to nurse education. Planning for Med-e-Tel 2008, the sixth edition of the global telemedicine and ehealth meeting, is well underway and program details will be posted shortly on the event website. The call for abstracts has just been closed and has resulted in a record breaking number of submissions for the conference program.