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European Health Telematics Observatory | |
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1.
EHTO Overview Setting the scene For many
years, the over-fragmented health telematics information and decision
structure in Europe has been a critical obstacle to scientific community
work and to adequate interaction with the related market (industries,
telecoms, SMEs). EHTO is the first European Web solution, now
extending world-wide, for tackling that problem. It aims to collect
and to disseminate most valuable information on all relevant issues
relating to health telematics, including European standards, regulatory
and ethical issues. Moreover, it offers a space for displaying
interactive news, and a space for on-line virtual Electronic
demonstrations, available to users, industry and service providers.
Approach EHTO provides a Web integrated and
innovative approach to dissemination of information on IT and on RTD
results to the specific audiences of professionals involved in health
telematics. The objective is to create an efficient IT-health
telematics market by overcoming the high fragmentation of decisional
structures of the health sector. The target is to facilitate and to
enhance the relations between users of technologies at all levels (health
professionals, decision and policy makers, and hospital administrators)
and providers of IT equipment and services (including telecom operators).
EHTO approach is unique not only at European level but also world-wide.
With the creation of a well structured and daily up-dated Information
Knowledge Base (IKB), EHTO dissemination benefits not only the European
health telematics community, but also EU sponsored Health Telematics
research participants, and finally, all TAP (Telematics Application
Programme) participants including SME’s. By its contribution to a
better integration of the Health sector economy into the Global
Information Society, EHTO enhances the competitiveness of European
scientific expertise and industry. The “Telematics environment ”
is widely represented in EHTO: its dynamic WWW includes most of Internet
and WWW state-of-art features. As part or EC funding, EHTO has
succeeded to install an Interactive Space (advertising, announcing events,
FAQ, Thematic Discussion Fora), and a Virtual Demonstration Space, using
Multimedia tools. Permanent assessment/evaluation have been done in the
EHTO specific workpackage “Quality Assessment and Control”. Thanks to
that, EHTO rapidly gained greater impact, visibility and credibility, as
well as a significant number of visitors (more than 4 Million up to now,
from the whole world). EHTO Quality Control (QC) has benefited not only
the project itself but also all users and the EHTO Network of 8 National
Languages Affiliated Sites (NLAS). QC was managed by VTT in Finland and
was of utmost importance in helping EHTO adopting the best strategies
suited to a world-wide success and making the necessary continuous
corrections in accordance with market dynamics. Results
and Achievements. Since
mid 1998, EHTO is recognized as a fundamental partner in most of Health
telematics and Telemedicine international activities, becoming a
“reference” Web Site in this sector. Main results are as
follows: **Since the beginning of 1997 EHTO
has become a specific product in the world market, together with its
Network of 8 NLAS (Western and Eastern Europe, and Latin America)
**The number of visitors in project
Years 1 to 4 is more than 4 Millions. **More than 355 international Web
Sites make a reference to EHTO ** Virtual Demos were installed in
EHTO for a number of TAP-HT (Telematics Application Programme – Health
Telematics) projects. ** A “Virtual Visit” to all
projects in HT-4th Framework Programme was installed in January 1998 (to
show HT results at the Barcelona final Conference, March 1998).
** New methods and processes: EHTO
Network of NLAS, an innovative concept for handling language and
health-legislation differences, is progressively catching outside
Europe (see Annex 1). ** Patent applications: Portugal
Telecom has already obtained in June 1999 a patent to EHTO at National level, and
presently EHTO waits for approval at international level. ** Contribution to Standards:
Dissemination and application of Standards (European and American
Standards – CEN TC251, ANSI, IMIA WG16, ISO, and other international
organizations). ** Hosted Sites: EHTO has
helped a number of HT Projects (giving them technical support, and
updating data, at no costs) to create their own Webs and is presently
hosting 6 of them. ** Publications: 6 EHTO Journals
issues were published (1996-1998) and EHTO is co-editor together with
Kensington Publications and the Royal Society of Medicine Forum (UK) of
the first “European Telemedicine Book 1998 /1999”. ** Workshops and Conferences: - 3
workshops on Telemedicine and on Standards. - Organization of
“EXPO’98 Telemedicine Conference” in September 1998 in Lisbon (on
invitation from DG13-ACTS programme). ** EHTO features considered in EHTO
Business Plan A new service is to be launched by EHTO towards the
end of 1999 - a “Premium” European Health Telematics Universal Portal.
Others: ** In 1997 EHTO was invited to
participate as an Affiliated Partnership member in the Canadian Institute
for Health Information (CIHI) ** Since 1996, EHTO is member of the
Council Board of HEALTH ON NET Foundation (HON, Geneva) ** EHTO is also active in the MIDJAN
Group and is member of its board of directors. EHTO hosts MIDJAN Web
Site. KEY milestones: EHTO Web Server
migrated in September 1998 from a research environment to a full
industrial environment within the Telecom Operator Portugal Telecom (PT).
This has enabled EHTO to get best conditions and sponsoring
necessary to the, now impending, creation of the European Portal. A
Business Plan was finalized with the support of PT. Very recently, important
negotiations succeeded to give EHTO an improved access capacity:
EHTO server should move very soon from CET (Innovation/PT) to TELEPAC
(internet service provider), which will give EHTO a band-with of
10Megabit/s (up to 100 peak). NOTE: in September 99, EHTO Web
offered the entire world a “premiere” video streaming on-line
broadcast of a telemedicine conference: the 2 days TELEMEDICINE
Forum ’99, in Lisbon. Conclusions
and Plans for the Future Started as an “Accompanying
Measure” to the Commission 4th Framework Programme for raising awareness
of the health community to the potential of telematics, EHTO has rapidly
become a successful product recognised by the market and has achieved
independence of EU funding since July 1999. EHTO has created an
interactive “Electronic Central Market Place” where European industry
and services can meet influential users and decision makers, discuss their
needs and make them aware of the solutions they offer. By launching
EHTO, the Commission demonstrated and proved EU capability of efficient
integration and exploitation of results, in spite of language and
regulatory culture differences (specifically in the health domain).
EHTO dissemination promotes implementation of projects results in Europe
and in other parts of the world, and establishes Europe at the center of a
world-wide “electronic health market place”. EHTO’s product added value and its value-for-money
are now evident for investors world-wide. This has confirmed our objectives
and clearly supports our strategy to launch a completely new work phase,
very soon. Contact
Details Project
Coordinator: Av.
da Liberdade,
2. The History of EHTO: The 1996 Observatory
1. What is the European Healthcare Telematics Observatory?
2. Methods and ServicesFollowing methods and services have been set up by the Observatory to help you:
3. Guidelines for:
4. More about this Initiative4.1 On the Web Site
4.2 When EHTO started:4.3 From the Technical Annex in 1996:
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Copyright 1998 © EHTO All rights reserved This server is the only official EHTO WWW knowledge repository. Mail suggestions to: webmaster@ehto.org |
