Updated: May 12, 98
Memorandum of Understanding

EHTO:
European Health Telematics Observatory
EHTO-NLAS:
EHTO Network of National Languages Affiliated Sites
Telematics:
the combination of informatics, telecommunications and video through the use of digitatisation and compression technologies
Health:
refers not only to individual care (healthcare) but also to prevention, management and public health
Affiliated site:
a site adhering to the concept expressed in this MOU
Document:
it is to be understood in the broad sense of any collection of data in any electronic format. So it can be either text, images, moving picture, applets, etc. and/or any multimedia and/or hypermedia combination of these which can be transmitted on any telecommunications network
Regional:
for convenience, this will refer both to ¨Regions¨ as different parts of a specific State and to ¨Regions¨ as a recognised group of States linked by geography or treaty. For example, Bavaria is a region in the first sense, whereas the European Union is a region in the second sense.

1. The objective of the EHTO-NLAS is to address both the opportunities and challenges, using tools presently offered by the Internet and the World-Wide-Web, and to contribute to the adaptation of these tools to the health care community and to the citizens interacting with this community. The EHTO-NLAS will set up and maintain a cooperative information dissemination organisation in the field of health telematics. It is envisaged that the EHTO-NLAS solution to the sharing of multilingual and multicultural information can serve as a template for other domains than health.

2. The EHTO-NLAS is a network of web sites dealing with health telematics information dissemination in different countries and/or regions of the World, which co-ordination is made jointly by the already existing EUROPEAN HEALTH TELEMATICS OBSERVATORY.

3. The role of each site is, amongst others, to:
   • gather and disseminate information on health telematics that can be used by organisations and individuals in their Country and/or Region culture and language;
   • give the opportunity to users and producers of health telematics applications and services in their Country and/or Region to interact in their own language and culture and within their legal and regulatory environment
   • ensure accuracy and timeliness of the local information
   • ensure that the information is tailored to the local health structure, culture and legal framework
   • share their information with the other sites in the EHTO-NLAS
   • adapt, where relevant, the information from the other sites to the local needs and/or health structure
   • act as relays of information with Countries and/or Regions sharing the same language, culture and/or health structure
   • assist the EUROPEAN HEALTH TELEMATICS OBSERVATORY in the co-ordination of the whole EHTO-NLAS and in the dissemination of information of common interest
   • contribute to the assessment and dissemination of best practices in the domain of health

4. Within the above set-up, apart from its co-ordinating role, EHTO remains specifically in charge of gathering and disseminating information related to the initiatives of the European Union in the field of health telematics. The European Health Telematics Observatory is also in charge of co-ordinating, within the EHTO-NLAS, the dissemination of results of EU funded projects. It will also, in collaboration with the other sites, act as an awareness and development centre ¨delocalised electronic demonstrations¨ of health telematics products and/or services. In addition, it will develop the use of ¨electronic workshops¨ in the health domain.

5. Thus, the role of the EHTO-NLAS is to structure the gathering and the dissemination of information in stable interacting sub-units (the sites) in order to ensure completeness and quality while avoiding information overload and chaos. Such a culture and language based interacting structure, by enabling parallel testing and validation of applications and services in different environments, will allow quicker assessment and adaptation of products and ideas. This, in turn, will facilitate the emergence and adaptative evolution of best practices and products in the domain of health.

Each of the signing organisations adhere to the following principles.

6. The EHTO-NLSAS is a network of independent organisations agreeing on the common goal of maintaining a user-friendly electronic information market place where any person or organisation can find and/or exchange up-dated and reliable information in the field of health telematics. Each organisation retains its own structure, most suited to its own purposes. Each participating organisation is responsible for its own funding. The EHTO-NLSAS network is ¨co-ordinated¨ by the ¨EHTO co-ordinator¨.
7. Each organisation will maintain a web site for the dissemination of health telematics information. This site can be either specific or part of an existing web site or network of web sites set up for other purposes. In this latter case, the EHTO-NLSAS part of the more general site or network of sites should be clearly identified. The information will be given mainly in the national (or regional when relevant) language(s). The choice of language(s) is the entire responsibility of each site. Each organisation has the entire responsibility of the content of its own site. Each organisation has ownership of the content of its own site except in cases described under 3 or 4 below in this MOU and/or if it is tied by other agreements outside this MOU. Each site has no obligation to mirror the content or part of the content of any of the other sites except for cases described under 3 or 4 below in this MOU.
8. Each organisation should get at least official recognition by their national and/or regional health authorities as a means for these authorities to disseminate documents and raise awareness on their activities in the field of health telematics and/or in other fields of health whenever relevant. The national and/or regional supporting authorities should be made aware of the adherence of the organisation to this MOU. In case any of the issues in this MOU conflict with regulations from national / regional authorities, the EHTO co-ordinator should be made immediately aware of it.
9. Each organisation should nominate a specific person, its ¨EHTO correspondent¨, responsible for the relations with the EHTO co-ordinator and with the other EHTO correspondents from the other organisations participating to the EHTO-NLSAS. In case this person would be unavailable for any reason, a suitable replacement should be reachable and maintain contacts with the EHTO co-ordinator when needed.
10. The EHTO co-ordinator will organise a ¨EHTO strategic board¨ consisting of each of the EHTO correspondents. This strategic board will meet (either electronically or physically) to discuss matters relevant to the EHTO-NLSAS organisation, funding and/or content. Agendas will be prepared by the EHTO co-ordinator. Meetings will be chaired by the EHTO co-ordinator or by a person designated by him/her. Decisions will be taken on consensus between the members. Apart from the EHTO correspondents (or their regularly appointed substitute), other persons may be invited to attend the strategic board meetings, whenever suitable according to the agenda and with the approval of the chair-person. The strategic board can discuss amendments to this MOU

Common presentation rules on the Affiliated Web Sites

Each of the EHTO-NLAS web sites will adhere to the following set of rules and general presentation guidelines, giving some ¨common look and feel¨ to sites visitors thus enabling them to reach quickly the information they need, and providing them assurance of quality and accuracy:

11. Each site in the network should clearly state, on a visible and easily accessible part of its arborescence, that it is part of the EHTO-NLAS and inform on the objectives of the network and on the co-ordinating role of EHTO. Each site should maintain up-dated pointers to EHTO and to all other sites in the network. The EHTO site will maintain a page raising awareness to the existence of the EHTO-NLAS and pointing to each of the sites adhering to this MOU. It is the responsibility of the EHTO correspondents to inform the EHTO co-ordinator of any changes in the URL address of his/her own site.
12. The name of each individual site should contain the following two key words suitably translated: ¨health telematics¨ and ¨observatory¨. It should also contain a word or an expression clearly identifying its national and/or regional character. When designing its own logo, the site can use the existing EHTO logo or part of it, but this is not mandatory. The logos of each site should be made freely available to EHTO and to the other sites for ease of reference.
13. As a minimum, each home page should contain at its top part, the EHTO logo, the name of the site, its acronym and the site’s own logo. A click on the EHTO logo should bring up a page explaining the role of EHTO (in the language of the site), stating that most or the information on EHTO is in English and giving the options to go directly to EHTO or back to the original home page.
14. Each page on display should bear the date of creation, the date of last up-date and the name or initials of the person responsible for its content.
15. The origin of each information on display should be easily traceable.
16. Each site should have ¨interactive¨ spaces similar in purpose to the ones on the EHTO site (Questions and Answers, Documents for comments, Profiles of interest, advertisements, Your news ...)
17. Each site should maintain up-dated descriptions and information on standardisation and regulatory activities going on in their Country and/or Region and relevant to health telematics development, research and/or implementation.

Copyright and Display rights, Activity indicators,

Consolidation of information

18. Each site has the right to display and/or mirror any public part from any of the other sites, provided it satisfies to three following conditions:
    1. it has written approval from the EHTO-NLAS correspondent from the copied site, with clear identification as to what part of the content is concerned
    2. the site of origin of the displayed document is acknowledged on the display and easily identifiable by the viewer
    3. The copyright statement from the originating site is maintained on the display
19. In case of translation of the material copied and/or mirrored from another site, article 18.1 applies with the following four additions: 1) the translator must be acknowledged, 2) the copyrights of the translated material are shared between the two sites unless otherwise agreed in writing 3) the copyright of the original un-translated document remains the property of the originator 4) the translating site is the sole responsible for the conformity of the translation to the original.
20. In case of modification other than translation of the copied and or mirrored material, a special agreement supplementing 18.3 above has to be sought between the sites concerned.
21. Each site should regularly communicate to the EHTO co-ordinator a set of activity indicators (to be determined, and necessary for quality assessment)
22. Each site should assist the EHTO co-ordinator in his/her dissemination and awareness raising activities
23. Each EHTO-NLAS correspondent should assist the EHTO co-ordinator in collecting and assessing data on health care telematics activity and progress in their Country and/or region, in order to enable the publication (on the web or on paper) of consolidated and comparative data on these matters. The origin and date of the data should be acknowledged on the publications

The Co-ordinator of the Affiliated Site EHTO Co-ordinator

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