Developing technology is one thing. But in the healthcare sector, convincing professionals and the public to trust technology when it affects physical and mental well-being is a major challenge confronting the development of ‘e-health'. The European Commission is dedicating much of its energy to overcoming such reservations.

At a conference in Copenhagen to mark e-health week on 7-9 May, a report will be delivered on how ICT can speed up innovation in healthcare. It has been prepared by a group led by Toomas Hendrik Ilves, the president of Estonia. Neelie Kroes, the European commissioner for the digital agenda, who commissioned the report, is already a convert. “It is not actually about the technology; it is about a new chance to design care around patients,” she said.

“What I would love is to make healthcare less intrusive and more personalised, as well as more affordable. That is essential because costs are rising and the population is ageing.”

The Commission has repeatedly said that e-health should be taken seriously as a possible solution to the growing difficulties in sustaining healthcare systems. In a speech last month, Kroes accused politicians of “sleeping through a crisis of health and care” and of “missing the chance to turn the demographic challenge into an innovation opportunity”.

One of the biggest e-health pilot scheme, the ‘Whole Systems Demonstrator' in the UK, has so far targeted about 6,000 patients who suffer from long-term health conditions, connecting them to medical staff via a television set-top box. Patients measure their weight, blood pressure, blood sugar levels or oxygen levels, and the results are fed back to the professionals who then take action if any abnormalities are detected. The pilot is set to be rolled out to another 50,000 people. EU policy-makers hope the scheme will prove a success and will lead to similar schemes replicated across Europe.

Ian Wishart