eHealth Initiatives to Support Medical Assistance While Travelling and Living Abroad

The European Commission today launched two initiatives to improve the safety and quality of care to people who require medical assistance while travelling or living abroad: a Recommendation on cross-border interoperability of electronic health record (EHR) systems and the Smart Open Services (SOS) project. The Recommendation aims to provide Member States with basic principles and guidelines for ensuring that doctors can gain access to vital information on patients that they are trying to treat, wherever such information may be located in Europe. The SOS project, co-funded by the European Commission, is supported by 12 Member States and their industry players, to demonstrate the benefits of such interoperability. It will enable health professionals to access specific medical data such as current medications of patients from other EU countries. In an emergency, sharing of medical information could save many patients' lives.

"Travelling around the European Union is taken for granted, until something goes wrong," said Viviane Reding, the EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media. "This is why the EU's initiatives on eHealth intend to remove linguistic administrative and technical barriers, by making it easier for people to receive treatment even when they are away from their home country. I expect our recommendation and the SOS project to make an important contribution to saving patients' lives in emergencies."

The SOS project will receive over €22 million in funding in the next 3 years, €11 million of which is covered by the European Commission's Competitiveness and Innovation Programme (CIP). The project is a first step in addressing problems faced by doctors with patients who seek health treatment when abroad. These problems include resupplying essential medication that a patient has lost, communicating medical situations to foreign-language doctors, diagnosing illness and prescribing proper medication with little knowledge of patient history. While several Member States have already developed electronic health records, many such (national) systems cannot communicate with each other.

The new project will strive to ensure compatibility of electronic medical information regardless of language or sophistication of technology, without having to establish a common system throughout Europe. This will allow health professionals to electronically access the data of a patient from another country, in their own language, using different technologies and systems. It will also make it possible for pharmacies to electronically process prescriptions from other Member States, so that patients travelling within the EU can obtain the correct essential medicine.

The SOS project builds on national initiatives with the direct participation of Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Slovakia, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Electronic records will be purely voluntary, and created only at the citizen's request, respecting his/her right to privacy. The information contained in these health records has yet to be agreed upon, but it will include a summary of essential information such as blood group, known allergies, medical conditions and details of medication the patient may be taking.

The Recommendation on cross-border interoperability of electronic health record (EHR) systems is the first Community document to comprehensively address the steps that Member States should take to establish an EHR system compatible with those in other Member States. The key objective is to allow patient choice to access his/her important information stored in electronic health record systems anywhere at any time. The SOS project will validate and update this Recommendation with further experiences and concrete lessons learned.

These eHealth initiatives are part of the Renewed Social Agenda (IP/08/1070).

Background:
The EU's Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP) aims to encourage the competitiveness of European enterprises. Part of CIP, the ICT policy support programme focuses on stimulating innovation and competitiveness through the wider take-up and best use of Information and Communication Technologies by citizens, businesses and governments, and it is this that supports the SOS Project.

The SOS project is classified as a Large Scale Pilot (LSP): driven by participating countries it focuses on enabling the cross-border provision of ICT-based services that are already operational at national, regional or local level. LSPs build on these services to find common specifications which can then be further developed to gain wider agreement. This will enable different national systems to communicate and interact with each other so that citizens and businesses can enjoy the full benefits of the single market.

The results of this e-Health LSP will be disseminated to the wider European healthcare community via the CALLIOPE network (Call for Interoperable eHealth services in Europe) so that other Member States can participate.

For further information, please visit:

Most Popular Now

AI could Improve Heart Attack Diagnosis …

An algorithm developed using artificial intelligence (AI) could soon be used by doctors to diagnose heart attacks with better speed and accuracy than ever before, according to new research from...

New Algorithm can Predict Diabetic Kidne…

Researchers from Sanford Burnham Prebys and the Chinese University of Hong Kong have developed a computational approach to predict whether a person with type 2 diabetes will develop kidney disease...

AI Predicts Future Pancreatic Cancer

An artificial intelligence (AI) tool has successfully identified people at the highest risk for pancreatic cancer up to three years before diagnosis using solely the patients’ medical records, according to...

AI Voice Coach Shows Promise in Depressi…

Artificial intelligence (AI) could be a useful tool in mental health treatment, according to the results of a new pilot study led by University of Illinois Chicago researchers. The study...

ChatGPT Passes Radiology Board Exam

The latest version of ChatGPT passed a radiology board-style exam, highlighting the potential of large language models but also revealing limitations that hinder reliability, according to two new research studies...

Scientists develop AI tool to predict Pa…

Scientists from UNSW Sydney with collaborators at Boston University have developed a tool that shows early promise in detecting Parkinson’s disease years before the first symptoms start appearing. In research published...

Better than Humans: AI in Intensive Care…

In the future, artificial intelligence (AI) will play an important role in medicine. In diagnostics, successful tests have already been performed: for example, the computer can learn to categorise images...

Could Online Gaming Social Networks Have…

For millions of Americans playing some type of video game is a daily occurrence. Games can be a welcome form of entertainment and relaxation for many, and the internet can...

Siemens Healthineers Opens State-of-the-…

Siemens Healthineers has opened its new Education & Development Center (EDC) in Erlangen. The open-plan building offers space for the currently 240 trainees and integrated degree program participants in Erlangen...

Siemens Healthineers Invests 80 Million …

Siemens Healthineers is building a new factory in Forchheim for the cultivation of crystals for semiconductor production. The total investment amounts to 80 million euros. The new factory is expected...

Orion Health Welcomes New Sales Director…

Orion Health has appointed a new sales director for Scotland. Gabriel Radford, who has a background in business development for companies working with health, social care, and local government, will...

AI Tool Outperforms Human Emergency Call…

A team of researchers from Denmark have developed a new artificial intelligence (AI) framework to address the number of strokes that go unrecognised by human emergency call handlers.(1) The framework...