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Focus: eHealth

Duration: January 2010 – December 2012

Geographical area: Denmark, Finland, Germany, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Russia, Sweden

Summary: Strengthening social capacities for the utilisation of eHealth technologies in the framework of the ageing population.

The social capacity, knowledge and acceptance to utilise eHealth technologies of citizens and medical professionals is a basic condition for the implementation and further generation of innovative technologies for the health sector. However the absorption of new knowledge and acceptance to use eHealth technologies is varying remarkably among citizens and medical professionals and needs to be strengthened in all partner regions.

eHealth technologies allow a mutually beneficial collaboration and involvement of patients and medical professionals in prevention and treatment. eHealth technologies empower patients to take more responsibility for their own health and quality of life and lead to better cost-efficiency in the health sector. A consequence of ageing population is more citizens with chronic diseases especially among elderly in all partner regions. Thus prevention and treatment of chronic diseases is an important market and implementation area for innovative eHealth technologies.

Although basic eHealth technology is widely available on the market the project partners consider a deployment problem in the health care sector. A main barrier is a lack of social capacity and acceptance by citizens and medical professionals to utilise eHealth technology. Thus the overall aim of the project is that citizens with chronic diseases and medical professionals in the partner regions have the capacity and knowledge as well as the acceptance to use eHealth technologies in prevention and treatment by the year 2012. The project analyses the impact of the ageing population on the health care systems and identifies and shares strategies in raising the capacity to utilise eHealth in prevention and treatment of chronic diseases. The findings were widely disseminated in a Transnational Discussion Round with stakeholders from policy, health sector and industry from the BSR.

The project had three pilot implementations with following main outputs: A comprehensive self-monitoring system for chronic heart failure patients (WP4), Education content for better utilisation of eHealth by medical professionals and citizens (WP5) and a multi-lingual personal health portal enabling citizens with chronic diseases to document electronically their health data supporting their mobility abroad (WP6). All developed standardised solutions were transferred and offered to health care providers and the general public in the BSR through a network of distributors and multipliers.