Personal Health Systems 2007

Personal Health Systems empower citizens to become involved in healthcare processes and enjoy better interaction and relationship with healthcare providers.
Personal Health Systems encourage preventive lifestyle, enable early diagnosis of diseases and facilitate the provision of personalised care at the point of need.
Personal Health Systems offer effective means to contain the rising healthcare costs.

Europe is facing the challenge of delivering quality healthcare to all its citizens, at affordable cost. The increasing demand by citizens for best quality healthcare, the costs of managing chronic diseases, and the need for prolonged medical care for the ageing society are major factors behind this challenge. Personal Health Systems can create opportunities for everybody, including the elderly population, to receive the best available healthcare. This conference focuses on the state-of-the-art in Personal Health Systems, such as wearable and portable health monitoring systems, and ICT-supported personalised services for extended healthcare, including home care.

The conference is organised by the European Commission and involves cooperation of several Directorates General. Sessions will be held over two days and will feature experts from a diverse background. Invited speakers will come from research organisations, medical device industry, healthcare organisations, user groups, Member State public administrations, policy makers, procurers and insurers.

At first, this conference attempts to consolidate the results of over 10 years of research in the area of Personal Health Systems (including telemedicine and home care) and demonstrate how applications can be expanded at European level to:

• Support efforts towards the sustainability of healthcare delivery systems.
• Contribute to the i2010 flagship initiative on “caring for people in an ageing society, addressing technologies for wellbeing, independent living and health”.
• Facilitate cross-border health services.
• Reduce disparities between regions related to access and continuity of healthcare.
• Facilitate the growth and sustainability of eHealth markets.

Further, the scope of this event extends to demonstrate the impact of eHealth , and in particular of Personal Health Systems, on:

• prevention and management of diseases, in particular long term care
• empowerment of citizens for improved management of health status
• independent living and care of people in need
• support to ongoing reforms of healthcare delivery systems

By bringing together healthcare professionals, industrial representatives as well as European, national and regional authorities, the conference aims to stimulate market development and support Member States and regions in deploying eHealth systems and services that enable better care for people in an ageing society.

Finally, the conference will serve as information and networking opportunity for the constituency interested in the upcoming Call 1 of the 7th Framework Programme, which aims at a new generation of Personal Health Systems.

Some audiovisual and technical demonstrations are also staged.

Please visit this WEBSITE regularly as it will be kept updated with the details and outcomes of the conference.