ICT provides Europeans with better and cheaper tools to improve the quality and delivery of social care, health monitoring and electronic health records.
Europeans live longer, hence the costs of health and social care will rise substantially to about 9% of EU GDP in 2050. Digital solutions can be our most powerful ally to maintain cost efficient and high quality health and social care, as it empowers people of every age to better manage their health and quality of life, anywhere.
ICT for health, wellbeing and ageing: a triple win
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can contribute by providing better services to manage your health and wellbeing. The introduction of ICT and telemedicine alone is estimated to improve efficiency of health and care by 20%. ICT empowers users of every age to better manage their health. The European economy can also benefit from a growing market.
By going digital we can achieve a triple win:
a better quality of life for European citizens,
innovation and growth for a competitive EU industry and
more sustainable healthcare systems for society.
The EU eHealth Action Plan covers areas as diverse as patient rights in cross-border healthcare, funding advanced research and development, and ensuring that electronic health record systems are compatible internationally.
Each year in Europe, around 300 000 babies are born prematurely. Our H2020 funded project Digi-NewB aims to achieve a non-invasive monitoring system which will help doctors and nurses take better decisions in a shorter time to prevent infections. How do we achieve this? By using the potential of big data!
PAL: A social robot and its avatar provide support via a mHealth solution to children with Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus (T1DM) and their parents. Personal goals are set together with health care professionals and pursued by doing different activities together with the robot or the avatar.
Our plan to help European industry, researchers and public authorities to make the best of the digital transformation has been published. Lowri Evans and Roberto Viola share some thoughts on what this could mean for Europe's future.
April is a busy month for the Future and Emerging Technologies Flagships with many important milestones: Partnering kick-off events, seminars, HPB platform release, a new web portal and the start of Graphene Phase 2!
Can computer simulation be used in clinical trials? The Avicenna project created a research and technological development roadmap describing how in silico techniques of computer simulation can be introduced into clinical trials.
Last July, the European Commission recognised 27 profiles and standards for healthcare systems to be developed through public procurement. This is a step forward for reaching the European Digital Single Market in eHealth.
If there is a common message from the European events on eHealth that I have attended recently, it is that patients are increasingly expecting to have more say in their personal healthcare, with the help of digital tools.
Employment participation of older workers is under-researched. We discussed this topic with experts in the field at the European Summit on Innovation for Active and healthy Ageing. This will also be the subject of the first call for proposals by the Joint Programming Initiative “More Years, Better Lives”
Imagine you have your medical record posted in a safe place in the cloud. Your usual clinicians can access it, but also any emergency doctor admitting you, unconscious from an accident or a medical crisis anywhere in Europe. The European Commission is funding projects to develop the structures and semantics needed to achieve this interoperability.
Today is the International Day of Older Persons and Europe is by far the "oldest" continent in the world. The number of people in Europe aged 65+ will almost double, from 85 million today to 151 million in 2060. Germany and Italy have the 2nd and 3rd highest median ages in the world. By 2050 also countries like Portugal, Malta, Germany or Spain are projected to have a media age of 50+.
The European Commission should continue supporting a wider use of digital tools in healthcare, according to the eHealth Stakeholder Group, a European Commission advisory body. There are 4 major areas on which the group presented specific suggestions for action.
mHealth has great potential. It allows you as a consumer to assess your own health status indicators. Such a tool could be beneficial, but introduces risks at the same time. This is where European legislation for medical devices comes in.
