Information and communication technologies are increasingly being used to improve the quality, provision and access to care while also bringing new elements to the reflection on the financial sustainability of health systems. However, questions exist over the legal and regulatory implications for eHealth services, especially as these can cross institutional boundaries and national borders.

It may not be long before swarms of tiny mobile robots will be giving a hand to the nurses and medical orderlies in hospitals. January month has been the official launch of a new EU project led by the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering IAO.

The Anty project is an interdisciplinary research project aiming to develop a robotic friend for hospitalized children called Probo. The ANTY project will be used to accomplish three important goals concerning different areas of interest. The first and main goal is to develop and build the robot to enlighten the children's stay in the hospital.

As result of the Call 6 with the IST priority Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) for the Ageing Society three new eHealth projects have been launched. The aim of the AAL for the Ageing Society IST priority was to extend the time during which elderly people can live independently in their preferred environment with the support of ICTs.

Addressing safety concerns related to advances in the nanomedicine field is of vital importance, according to the newly published "Opinion on the Ethical Aspects of Nanomedicine" from the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies.

Doctors have always been struggling with the question whether their patients will get a heart attack in the near future. Magnetic resonance imaging of the heart might give them just that answer.

A European consortium has received a EUR 2.8 million grant from the European Commission to develop a camera that can be ingested to obtain images of the digestive tract.