Abstract
e-Health is a broad term addressing the use of information and communication technologies in the support of health and health-related fields including healthcare provision, health surveillance, and education.1 e-Health can be divided into four areas: 1. telemedicine and telecare (including disease management services, remote patient monitoring, teleconsultation, homecare); 2. clinical information systems (electronic health records and decision support); 3. integrated regional and national information networks and associated e-referrals; and 4. cardiology registries and other non-clinical systems used for education, public health, and healthcare management. Related terms also include m-health (‘mobile health’) building on the concept of mobile devices delivering health information such as drug and treatment options, screening patients, monitoring vital signs, providing direct care and patient education, and p-health (‘personalized health’) used to describe wearable micro- and nano-technologies with sensors, actuators, and ‘smart’ fibres to help facilitate personalized health and social care decision making and delivery.2 In 2010, COCIR, the European Coordination Committee of the Radiological, Electromedical and Healthcare IT Industry, established a dictionary of telemedicine terms to reduce the uncertainty surrounding the overlapping terms and concepts.3 e-Health can provide innovative solutions addressing problems in ageing societies with increasing numbers of citizens living with chronic conditions, limited healthcare funding, and personnel. It can support the strong political drive to move care closer to patients' homes and away from specialist centres. Technological innovation has brought e-health services that enable co-operation, information sharing, and decision support based on good practices and emerging evidence-based guidelines. However, social and technological issues hinder healthcare systems from reaping the benefits of wide adoption. Too often e-health services are technology-driven and health professionals have been resistant to their deployment and mainstream adoption, considering them ‘solutions seeking a problem’. Concern is raised about the risk of medicine becoming depersonalized, rather than e-health being considered as an aid to …
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