Accidents or operations are often followed by long periods of rehabilitation treatment. In future, a new technology will allow patients to do physiotherapy exercises at home, while still making sure that they are performing movements correctly. Though the skier glides skillfully across the snow-covered landscape, still he stumbles on an icy section of the piste and loses his balance, ending his well-earned winter break in a hospital bed.

What is eHealth?
eHealth means using digital tools and services for health. eHealth covers the interaction between patients and health-service providers, institution-to-institution transmission of data, or peer-to-peer communication between patients and/or health professionals. Examples include health information networks, electronic health records, telemedicine services, wearable and portable personal health systems and many other information and communication technology (ICT)-based tools assisting disease prevention, diagnosis, treatment and follow up.

The European Commission has unveiled an Action Plan to address barriers to the full use of digital solutions in Europe's healthcare systems. The goal is to improve healthcare for the benefit of patients, give patients more control of their care and bring down costs. While patients and health professionals are enthusiastically using telehealth solutions and millions of Europeans have downloaded smartphone apps to keep track of their health and wellbeing, digital healthcare has yet to reap its great potential to improve healthcare and generate efficiency savings.

Health Ministers from the Global Health Security Initiative met in Berlin to discuss the future priorities to strengthening global health security. The Global Health Security Initiative (GHSI) is an informal, international partnership between France , Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Mexico, the United States, the European Commission and the World Health Organisation, established in 2001 to strengthen health preparedness and response globally to threats of biological, chemical, radio-nuclear terrorism (CBRN) and pandemic influenza.

A software tool called PredictAD developed by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland promises to enable earlier diagnosis of the disease on the basis of patient measurements and large databases. Alzheimer's disease currently takes on average 20 months to diagnose in Europe. VTT has shown that the new method could allow as many as half of patients to get a diagnosis approximately a year earlier.

Researchers from Universidad Carlos III of Madrid (UC3M) are collaborating with the firm IonIDE to develop a system that will enable hospital patients who suffer some type of handicap to have access to digital entertainment and communication services by means of an intelligent terminal attached to their beds, which will also allow medical personnel to consult the patient's medical history.

The European Commission's Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CONNECT) has launched a Stakeholder Survey to learn more about individuals, groups, organisations and entities who are involved in, or have views on, shaping Digital Agenda for Europe.