The European Commission (EC) has encouraged experts in the field of telemedicine to play an active role in the development of innovative technologies for chronic disease management. The TeleHealth 2007 conference (Brussels, Belgium, 11 December 2007) aims to identify barriers to broad telemedicine development and concrete actions for the European Union Institutions, Member States, Regions, Industries, User organisations and other stakeholders. 
The European Journal of ePractice, a new online publication on eGovernment, eHealth and eInclusion has been launched as an initiative of the European Commission's ePractice.eu portal. The aim of European Journal of ePractice (EJeP) is to reinforce the visibility of articles as well as that of professionals in eTransformation, building an author's community which will strengthen the overall ePractice.eu activity. 
An EU-funded project developing an intelligent healthcare monitoring and decision-support system is about to start testing two applications. Now that the technical implementation has been completed, the SAPHIRE project's pilot studies will involve monitoring cardiovascular patients in a hospital in Romania and in homecare in Germany. 
Traditionally home automation, consumer electronics, mobile communications and personal computing were strictly separate domains all having their own industrial companies, with their own business plans, standardization efforts and form factors. By introducing the networked home, also called the connected home, this traditional separation of activities is no longer valid.