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Cutting the ribbon...The congress attracted more than 1200 participants from 38 countries. Fol-lowing the opening plenary the inauguration of the exhibition of ICT applica-tions followed. With a ceremonial that involved the cutting of a blue ribbon, the Greek Minister Adonis Georgiadis, the Vice President of the European Com-mission Neelie Kroes responsible for the digital agenda, the European Commis-sionaire for Health Tonio Borg and the General Secretary for Public Health for Greece officially opened the exhibition. More than 50 exhibitors from Greece other European countries and the US, joined the conference: commercial companies, institutes, local authorities. The Greek Minister of Health walked through the exhibition area for some time, talking to the participants, watch-ing video presentations of applications and asking questions.

CONTENTS02 eHealtH Forum: HealtH management in tHe 21st century03 sHaping a HealtHier, stronger Future 04 iHe symposium & FortH: From researcH to eFFective impact on HealtH 06 eHealtH For resource-limited settings07 mHealtH: improving accessibility and quality oF liFe

www.ehealth2014.org

This is eHealth Forum week, a time to discuss how tech-nology can bring positive changes into healthcare sys-tems and turn today’s health and ageing challenges into economic growth. This year’s eHealth Forum 12-14 May, in Athens. Greece can inspire other EU countries with the successful use of eHealth tools, developed as a result of EU research and innovation funding or support.

Innovation PartnershipsLast year, Greece established a network for the Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing. This partnership of professionals in health and care aims to address the challeng-es of an ageing society with innovative services and practices, along the formula of the European Innovation partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing (@EIP_AHA). This commitment to a European project at national level sets another good practice to follow by other Member States. On Monday, utilisation of European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) in Active and Healthy Ageing was discussed in a morning session; also dedicated to EIP AHA was the session en-titled “European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing & ECHAlliance Connected Health Ecosystem working together for scaling-up innovation”.

“Wearable tech” applications During this first day of eHealth Forum, mHealth was dis-cussed, in the session “mHealth: improving accessibility and quality of life”. Tuesday, in the session “Technology to support an Ageing Population - 3 projects take the lead: USEFIL, pro-FOUND, E-NOFALLS”, the “wearable tech” will be discussed; a growing field for health application. Under the USEFIL pro-ject which will be demonstrated at the eHealth Forum, the combination of a smart watch and an even smarter mirror can show you & your carers how you feel and what you do. The product was developed through an EU-funded research

project coordinated by Demokritos, the Greek National Centre for Scientific Research. Cameras behind the mir-ror register a patient’s facial expres-sion and body language. Meanwhile, a smart watch around the wrist records daily activities, blood pressure and heart rate. All this information is com-bined into infographics and shown on the mirror’s surface, along with a calendar and clock. The information is also shared with carers who can use this feedback to prescribe appropriate medication, to decide an appointment is needed soon, to send reminders of appointments through the mirror, en-suring patients will not forget them. The smart mirror and watch are unob-trusive: people don’t need to change their home or way of living, to use them. The system helps elderly people stay independent for longer. Although the project will be completed only at the end of this year, it is already ex-panding and forging partnerships with American companies.

ePrescriptionDuring the forum, on Tuesday, the eHealth Network - the leading body for EU cooperation on the interoper-ability of eHealth, will meet to discuss guidelines for the interoperability of ePrescriptions, due to be adopted in No-vember.

www.ehealth2014.org

The Greek ePrescription system was first introduced in 2010, and is today used by 98% of pharmacies and 90% of doctors in Greece. It already covers more than 6 million electronic prescrip-tions and 1.5 million diagnostic referrals. The system supports decision-making by health authorities on issues such as how to improve patient services and public health planning. The ePrescription system has been a good basis for further modernisation of the Greek health system, which in-cludes an Electronic Medical Record (EMR) containing a patient summary (a summary of all medication a patient is taking, along with other medical and personal data). This is especially help-ful for preventing over-prescription and conflicting medication, and it can be life-saving for travelers. The patient summary was developed according to the European patient summary data-set, recently adopted by the eHealth Network with guidelines for this data to be shared across borders.The Greek ePrescription system was built on the basis of EU-funded epSOS project. Greece also teamed up with Sweden to share best practices on ePre-scription. All in all an interesting exam-ple for other countries to follow, and a fertile ground for them to export their own good practices, thanks to ICT inter-operabilities.

eHealtH forum: HealtH management In tHe 21St century

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European Commission Vice President responsible for the Digital Agenda, Neelie Kroes, spoke at the opening session at eHealth Forum Athens, today.

Mrs Kroes referred to the first eHealth conference in 2003, also under the Greek presidency and pointed out the changes made over the last decade. “Experts and professionals have run a relay, taking eHealth racing from one country to anoth-er. So eHealth has become a priority of national and regional healthcare”. She mentioned several examples of successful implementa-tion of eHealth tools: in Italy, eHealth tools have saved one euro in every 9 spent on healthcare. In Estonia citizens can go online to review their own records, consent to procedures, and check up on prescriptions. Used by almost half of citizens, 80% of prescriptions, 95% of doctors, and 100% safely and securely. Also here in Greece, average costs fell by 30% since e-Prescriptions were introduced – an innovation which also fights fraud and cuts over-prescribing. Also, she underlined the need for right investment, and new ways of deploying innovation at large scale. For that purpose, the Commission has stepped up with Horizon 2020 and with European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Age-ing. Over the next 6 years, through Horizon 2020, the EU has secured over one billion euros to support Research and inno-

vation in eHealth and ICT for ageing.e-Health provides us with many oppor-tunities for patients, doctors and the healthcare system in general, the Com-missioner said. Last, but not least it is a huge opportunity for innovation, econ-omy and jobs. Let us not forget: It’s not just Europe getting older – the whole world is too. For our brightest compa-nies and most creative innovators, this is a great chance. E-Health is the export opportunity number one.

To promote innovation in Europe, most of all we need “a shift in mind-set. Having new tools, devices and apps is one thing. Integrating them across the health system, large-scale, is another. It takes effort and dedi-cation – and the will to change”, the Commissioner said.

www.ehealth2014.org

SHapIng a HealtHIer, Stronger future

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[eHealtHopenIng plenary: eHealtH SHapIng futureS]

>Evidence are piling up. Sustainable care pathways can only be realized if eHealth technologies are righteously exploited. Challenges are waiting to be met, barriers to be overcome, failures to offer lessons, but doubts are small: healthcare future is largely shaped by the deployment of eHealth solutions.

Christina Papanikolaou, General Secretary of Public Health, Ministry of Health, Greece hosted the opening of the Forum. Key speakers were the European Commission Vice President responsible for the Digital Agenda, Neelie Kroes, European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Policy, Borg Tonio and the Greek Minister of Health, Adonis Georgiadis.

IHe SympoSIum: practIcal InteroperabIlIty In actIon

from reSearcH to effectIve Impact on HealtH

T he symposium offered a practical perspective on how to accelerate standards-based interoperabil-

ity implementation across ehealth projects, including best practice examples, from a number of regional pro-grammes across Europe.This symposium was an opportunity to learn from ehealth interoperability experts from industry, from test-ing experts and from regional initiatives, the critical ena-blers proposed by Integrating the Health Care Enterprise (IHE) interoperability. Examples of such successful inter-operability implementations and analysis of the reasons for success and lessons learnt were provided by Elena Vio from Venetto Region (Italy), Heiko Zimmerman from Lux-embourg eSanté and Dr Leonidas Tzimis from Greece.Lapo Bertini (Dedalus Spa) Chair of IHE-Europe presented on IHE’s relevance to eHealth and Karima Bourquard, Di-rector Interoperability at IHE-Europe presented IHE as an interoperability engine for Europe. Alexander Berler (GNOMON) commented on how IHE Profiles can benefit eHealth projects in Greece.The business benefits and efficiency gained by designing interoperability based on profile-based interoperability specifications were be presented by Charles Parisot from GE Healthcare highlighting the findings of a recent ISO Technical Report on ehealth standards adoption. Finally, Cor Loef, as general manager, presented the value resulting from the open source test tooling made avail-able by IHE Services which was created by IHE-Europe to bring trust to interoperability for both the vendors and national and regional ehealth projects, through con-formance assessment competency. IHE-Services sup-ports procurement, development and deployment of IHE standards based interoperability solutions.

The Institute of Computer Science of the Foundation for Research & Tech-nology- Hellas (FORTH-ICS) organized the session “From Research to Effec-

tive Impact on Health”, 11.00:13:00 at Poseidon Hall. Internationally recognized speakers presented the 30 years of experience of FORTH-ICS in the eHealth do-main. The session was well attended with participants ranging from research-ers, doctors, citizen representatives, policy makers, engineers and others. The presentations focused on the wider context of activities including the Integrat-ed Care Solutions, the commercial eHealth products of FORTH-ICS as well as state of the art technologies and research in the wider context of personalized, predictive, pervasive and preventive medicine. FORTH-ICS shows remarkable results in Personal Health Systems, Individualized Medicine models for enhanc-ing biomedical knowledge discovery, optimal management of chronic diseases, optimization of diagnosis and treatment through predictive models, medical imaging analysis, clinical decision support tools and integrated care solutions. European and National projects presented during the session included REAC-TION, p-Medicine, MyHealthAvatar, Semeoticons, eHealthMonitor, eMoDiA and others. FORTH-ICS also actively participated at the Synergies Session of the EIP-AHA, and strongly involved in the action groups A2 FALLS, A3 Frailty and D4 Age friendly environments. Commercial eHealth products of FORTH-ICS are operated in more than 20 healthcare organizations in Greece, as part of Integrated Regional Health In-formation Systems, like the ones of the 1st Healthcare Region of Attica, the 2nd Healthcare Region of Piraeus and Aegean, and the 6th Healthcare Region of Peloponnesus, Ionian, Epirus & West Greece.FORTH-ICS is committed to eHealth interoperability and the consistent im-plementation of international standards as the only way towards high-qual-ity, active, and pervasive EHRs supporting procedures, reducing medical er-rors and improving integrated health care and continuity of care. FORTH-ICS is a founding member of HL7 Hellas and participates at the HL7 International–HL7 Hellas stand at the eHealth 2014 exhibition.

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FORTH-ICS stand in the Exhibition Area

https://twitter.com/gnomonsa Thessaloniki: +30 2310 - 804150 Athens: +30 211 - 1001690 http://www.gnomon.com.gr/interoperability

We provide tools and consulting services for building and connecting interoperable healthcare applications.

We help our customers deliver standards based interoperable, future proof solutions enabling cross-border, patient

centric healthcare. We work on procedures, systems and people to tame the complexity and deliver quality results.

We make interoperability available for patients and healthcare providers.

Interoperability?

We make it available.

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www.ehealth2014.org

Snomed ct HealtH termInology by IHtSdoed SettIngS

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[eHealtH for reSource-lImIted SettIngS]>Mr. Frank Lievens, Board member and Secretary of the International Society for Telemedicine and eHealth (ISfTeH) summarized the “eHealth for Resource-Limited Settings” session fits perfectly within the frame of eHealth Forum conference.The major role that the European Union can and must play regarding this most important element in the global development of eHealth was highlighted. Implementation of eHealth at all levels is the only way for resource-limited countries and regions around the world to reach an acceptable level of health services and to meet their growing needs.The six presentations included in this session covered crucial and priority applications:n Open Source mHealth n Charity in modern times n Distance bridging n Mobile communication technology n Enhancing quality of life n Health inequalities.We trust that these subjects will raise appropriate awareness among the participants and shall contribute to further improvement of eHealth implementation in resource-limited settings.

IHTSDO presented the health terminology SNOMED CT during their ses-sion on Monday 12th. Focus was to present SNOMED CT and the benefits of structured codified data as well as bring in real examples of usage from the healthcare provider Kaiser Permanente in the USA. Around the world, there is increasing recognition that electronic health records can foster improvements in health outcomes and in the efficiency of health services. Patients can benefit, as can health care providers and health systems. These gains depend on the safe exchange of clinical in-formation. Standardized clinical terminology is a key to moving forward. National Members of the International Health Terminology Standards De-velopment Organisation (IHTSDO) share an interest in collective progress in this domain. Together, they have committed to jointly govern SNOMED CT and to influence its ongoing further development. SNOMED CT is a valu-able component of the EHR. It has been developed and validated by clinical, technical and terminological experts. Using SNOMED CT to represent clini-cal information allows meaning-based retrieval of information. A SNOMED CT enabled EHR can be used to identify key facts, presenting opportunities to reduce the risks of errors of omission or commission.

The usage in Kaiser Permanente HMORealization of its potential benefits depends on implementation, deploy-ment and practical use. Kaiser Permanente has over 20 years experience implementing SNOMED CT. It is the core of Kaiser Permanente’s enterprise-wide medical terminology solution, referred to as Convergent Medical Ter-minology (CMT), which is freely available in download files from the US Na-tional Library of Medicine. This is Kaiser Permanente’s common terminology across all applications and it is the language of interoperability, with cross-maps toother terminology and classification systems, including local codes and systems. Kaiser Permanente’s experience with SNOMED CT led them to develop guiding principles for a successful terminology solution. Following their principles enables implementers to exploit the capability of the termi-nology in ways that are preferred by physicians and nurses and that simulta-neously enable powerful options for data analysis and reporting.

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mHealtH: ImprovIng acceSSIbIlIty and qualIty of lIfeExpectations are high for mHealth. The widespread use of mobile connec-tivity in healthcare could significantly cut costs, increase the reach and ac-cessibility of healthcare and improve the quality of European citizens’ lives. However, healthcare’s strong resist-ance to change slows adoption of inno-vative mHealth. Widespread adoption of mHealth requires changes in organi-sational schemes and the behaviour of actors who are trying to protect their interests. It also requires services and products that appeal to current payers. This session presented successful ex-amples of working solutions, meaning-ful services and promising business and care models to draw upon these chal-

lenges. Examples shown here, will con-tribute to the current consultation on the recently published Green Paper on mHealth by the European Commission.Dr. Paul Timmers, Director, DG CON-NECT opened the session with an over-view of the challenges addressed by the paper. Speakers and panelists – all leaders in their fields - representing the whole range of stakeholders, i.e. pa-tients, care providers, payers, health professionals and the industry gave their views and opinions which were discussed with the audience. Valuable conclusions were drawn on safety, pri-vacy and reimbursement, and they will be used as consultation input for the Green Paper.

Official Dinner Sponsors

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