IT for Cross-Border Healthcarein Digital Health Research & Innovation

The landmark 2011 “Directive on patients' rights in cross-border healthcare” not only marked a new phase in European Union engagement in health policy, boosted by European Court of Justice rulings about basic freedoms in a single market, including freedom of movement. It also provided the first legal base for eHealth. As a result, obligations, opportunities and incentives have been created for ICT applications - to improve patient-data access and exchange across borders, for patients both in emergency situations and when seeking planned healthcare from a specialist in another member state. Through numerous studies and projects, empirica has been pivotal in supporting the provision of cross-border healthcare facilitated by ICT. The involvement has included the 25-country epSOS pilot, developing Smart Open Services (for patient data summaries and electronic prescriptions) for European Patients; the openMedicine project Meeting the challenge of open access to medicinal products across the Union; participation in the Evaluative Study on the Cross-border Healthcare Directive; and the study supporting The set-up of guidelines in support of European ePrescription interoperability. In addition, we have been involved in the  Digital Health Strategies project to monitor the development and implementation of eHealth Strategies of all EU Member States, the ASSIST study on the development of an AsseSSment and evaluatIon toolS for Telemedicine to assist the European Space Agency ( ESA) and its industry partners to better focus R&D and business development on initiatives that have clear and objective added value  as well as the ARGOS eHealth  EU-USA project on a Transatlantic Observatory for Meeting Global Health Policy Challenges through ICT-Enabled Solutions should be mentioned.