The EU eHealth Task Force first meeting took place in Budapest during the eHealth week. This group is created to assess the role of information and communications technologies (ICT) in health and social care and to suggest ways for ICT to speed up innovation in healthcare to the benefit of patients, carers and the healthcare sector.

The first time of the EU eHealth Task Force in Budapest on 10th May was celebrated in the framework of the eHealth week. The eHealth Task Force will advise the Commission on how to unlock the potential of eHealth for safer, better and more efficient healthcare in Europe inter alia as regards diagnostics, prevention and treatment. It will look carefully at how to achieve inter-operability of eHealth services and technologies across the EU. Besides, a recent survey on eHealth shows that hospitals are not yet deploying ICTs to their full potential. Although most hospitals are connected to broadband, only 4% of them grant patients online access to their medical data. ICT applications already help to empower patients and address challenges faced by EU healthcare systems like an ageing population, a rise in chronic diseases, a shortage in health professionals and budget constraints by, for example, enabling remote diagnosis and treatment and secure sharing of patient records. It will also explore the relationships between eHealth, telemedicine, and social policy, initiatives.

Neelie Kroes, European Commission Vice-President for the Digital Agenda, stressed that the potential of eHealth for delivering better and sustainable care to every European is enormous. In addition, the European commissioner in charge of Health and Consumer Policy, John Dalli, underlined that eHealth tools can help provide better care, to more people, in a more sustainable and efficient manner because there is a clear need in Europe to exploit the potential of eHealth to deliver concrete solutions for patients.

The Task Force should take into account current policy developments at EU level, including the Digital Agenda for Europe, the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing and the recently adopted Directive on patient rights for cross border care, but its focus will be on the future, and how innovation can benefit healthcare systems and society at large.