Learn about The 10 Es in "e-health" (Eysenbach, 2001, para. 6) - Efficiency
- one of the promises of e-health is to increase efficiency in health
care, thereby decreasing costs. One possible way of decreasing costs
would be by avoiding duplicative or unnecessary diagnostic or
therapeutic interventions, through enhanced communication possibilities
between health care establishments, and through patient involvement.
- Enhancing quality
of care - increasing efficiency involves not only reducing costs, but
at the same time improving quality. E-health may enhance the quality of
health care for example by allowing comparisons between different
providers, involving consumers as additional power for quality
assurance, and directing patient streams to the best quality providers.
- Evidence based
- e-health interventions should be evidence-based in a sense that their
effectiveness and efficiency should not be assumed but proven by
rigorous scientific evaluation. Much work still has to be done in this
area.
- Empowerment of consumers and
patients - by making the knowledge bases of medicine and personal
electronic records accessible to consumers over the Internet, e-health
opens new avenues for patient-centered medicine, and enables
evidence-based patient choice.
- Encouragement
of a new relationship between the patient and health professional,
towards a true partnership, where decisions are made in a shared manner.
- Education
of physicians through online sources (continuing medical education) and
consumers (health education, tailored preventive information for
consumers)
- Enabling information exchange and communication in a standardized way between health care establishments.
- Extending
the scope of health care beyond its conventional boundaries. This is
meant in both a geographical sense as well as in a conceptual sense.
e-health enables consumers to easily obtain health services online from
global providers. These services can range from simple advice to more
complex interventions or products such a pharmaceuticals.
- Ethics
- e-health involves new forms of patient-physician interaction and
poses new challenges and threats to ethical issues such as online
professional practice, informed consent, privacy and equity issues.
- Equity
- to make health care more equitable is one of the promises of
e-health, but at the same time there is a considerable threat that
e-health may deepen the gap between the "haves" and "have-nots".
People, who do not have the money, skills, and access to computers and
networks, cannot use computers effectively. As a result, these patient
populations (which would actually benefit the most from health
information) are those who are the least likely to benefit from
advances in information technology, unless political measures ensure
equitable access for all. The digital divide currently runs between
rural vs. urban populations, rich vs. poor, young vs. old, male vs.
female people, and between neglected/rare vs. common diseases.
Eysenbach, G. (2001). What is e-health? Journal of Medical Internet Research, 3(2), 1-4.
This conference is good for - Medical
professionals
- Pharmaceutical
professionals
- Nursing
professionals
- Health
technology professionals
- Engineering
and design professionals
- Scientists
- Policy
makers/Law makers
- Entrepreneurs
- Education
professionals
- International
development professionals
- Finance
professionals
- Policy
makers at academic and industry level
- Business
professionals at all levels
- University
and school principals, deans and department heads
- Chief
executives in industries
- Heads
of research organizations
- Media
owners
- Top
government planners and strategists
- International
financiers and economists
- Exporting
companies
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