March 12, 2020 / By mobanmarket
Europe’s healthcare system is in need of a 21st-century check-up to make more services available digitally Healthcare from home
The internet has fundamentally transformed how we live. Tasks for which people routinely had to leave the house, such as work or shopping, can now be performed at a computer screen in the home.
However, the internet revolution has not yet had the same transforming impact on the patient’s experience of healthcare. Yes, patients can browse the web and either become better informed or work themselves into a panic by misdiagnosing symptoms. But when it comes to genuine medical advice or treatment, a visit to a doctor’s surgery, a clinic or a hospital is still the norm. Such care can be costly and inconvenient, especially for those with a chronic illness that requires regular consultation with a medical expert.
“How much time and money is being used to bring patients back and forth between home and the hospital?” asks Serge Bernasconi, chief executive of medical technology industry association MedTech Europe. “Most of what the patient is doing could be done at home. That information can be automatically transferred to the doctors making the decisions, and then they can make the call. And they could say: ‘Look, things are fine. Stay at home.’”
The technology to make that possible is available today. Collectively it is known as ‘eHealth’– healthcare delivered electronically through communication devices – and the term covers a multitude of forms of care. eHealth includes, among other things, all areas of telemedicine – treatment at a distance – including teleradiology, teleconsultation and telemonitoring. Yet, despite the advances that have been made, most European healthcare systems have been slow to embrace them. Only in the Nordic countries has eHealth been taken up with enthusiasm.
Perhaps that is not surprising. Patients are generally cautious. They are traditionally suspicious of new methods of treatment. Healthcare workers, like those in any other sector, are suspicious of changes that might threaten their employment. But the impetus ought to come from national governments. They are anxious to keep down healthcare costs, which are bound to come under pressure as people live longer and more treatments become possible. They know that new technology can deliver improvements to healthcare. At a meeting of health ministers in December 2009, the European Union’s member states collectively signed up to committing themselves “politically and strategically to eHealth as one of the main instruments to enhance quality, access and safety in healthcare”.
At that meeting, the ministers urged the European Commission to update its action plan for eHealth. Today (6 December), three years after those Council conclusions – perceived at the time as a breakthrough – the Commission is launching an ‘eHealth Action Plan 2012-2020’. It comes jointly from the Commission’s departments for health and the digital agenda. It sets out a roadmap for increasing the use of eHealth and clarifies some of the legal uncertainties around its use – particularly across national borders.
Neelie Kroes, the European commissioner for the digital agenda, says that the purpose of the action plan is to set out “how we can bring digital benefits to healthcare, and lift barriers to smarter, safer, patient-centred health services”.
She says: “Europe’s healthcare systems aren’t yet broken, but the cracks are beginning to show. It’s time to give this 20th century model a healthcheck.”
One of the main aims of the action plan will be to reduce the ignorance among both patients and healthcare practitioners of eHealth’s possibilities. Many patients do not know about the at-home electronic solutions that they could ask for from their doctors. Even doctors who are aware of the new possibilities for diagnosis and monitoring may feel hesitant to suggest procedures that their patients are not yet comfortable with, doubting their legitimacy.
Another big issue for the EU is to ensure interoperability between healthcare systems in different member states. The plan will aim to develop standards and encourage best practices. A document accompanying the action plan today will give a legal overview, charting the fragmented legal framework for eHealth. It clarifies in what circumstances the doctor needs to be licensed in the country in which the patient lives, and which liability regime would apply if there were a malpractice case.
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