“ECRIN (European Clinical Research Infrastructures Network) requirements” – Kuchinke W.
Research Community Presentation at: EUDAT 1st User Forum.
7 March 2012 – 8 March 2012, in Barcelona, Spain.
http://www.eudat.eu/1st-eudat-user-forum
“Real-World Data and the UK Opportunity”
Reference: Mansell, P., “Real-World Data and the UK Opportunity”, PharmaTimes, March 2012, pp23-25.
The TRANSFoRm Zone Model of data privacy was presented at the e-Science Workflows Workshop (Thursday 09 February 2012 – Friday 10 February 2012) in Budapest. ECRIN has been invited by EGI (European Grid Initiative) to present a research problem where workflow, cloud and grid technologies could be a solution. EGI is searching for potential users of their Grid services coming from the health research domain.
Therefore, for the e-Science workshop, Dr. Wolfgang Kuchinke presented the TRANSFoRm privacy model: here the different data access, pseudonymisation, anonymisation, aggregation and encryption operations of the data flow from the care zone to the research zone could be done by workflow systems and the grid in the background of the clinical trial process. The workshop took place in the MTA SZTAKI (Hungarian Academy of Sciences) building in Budapest.
“A flexible zone model for data privacy and confidentiality in medical research”
Wolfgang Kuchinke (1), Christian Ohmann (1), Evert-Ben van Veen (2), Robert Verheij (3), Adel Taweel (4), Brendan Delaney (4)
(1) University of Duesseldorf and ECRIN, (2) MedLawConsult DenHaag, The Netherlands, (3) NIVEL, The Netherlands, (4) King’s College London, UK. Workshops on e-Science Workflows 09 Feb. 2012 – 10 Feb. 2012, Budapest
Further information: http://www.egi.eu/blog/2011/11/18/joint_workshops_on_e_science_workflows_in_budapest.html
“Integrated Vocabulary Service for Health Data Interoperability” – Authors: Lim Choi Keung S. N., Zhao L., Tyler E. and Arvanitis T. N.,
Fourth International Conference on eHealth, Telemedicine and Social Medicine (eTELEMED 2012), Valencia: Spain, 124-127, 2012.
What is eHealth?
eHealth means Information and Communication Technologies tools and services for health. Whether eHealth tools are used behind the scenes by healthcare professionals, or directly by patients, they play a significant role in improving the health of European citizens.
Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have an ever-growing impact on our working and private lives, and the healthcare sector is no exception. Used appropriately, the tools and services which contribute to eHealth provide better, more efficient healthcare services for all.
eHealth covers the interaction between patients and health-service providers, institution-to-institution transmission of data, or peer-to-peer communication between patients and/or health professionals. Examples include health information networks, electronic health records, telemedicine services, wearable and portable systems which communicate, health portals, and many other ICT-based tools assisting disease prevention, diagnosis, treatment, health monitoring and lifestyle management.
Better informed
eHealth systems provide patients with better information – on treatments, on their condition, and on improved standards of living – and make it simpler for healthcare professionals to access and share information, both general and patient-specific. The use of electronic patient records allows doctors to see much more of a person’s medical history than do paper files, which typically only include information on treatment in a single surgery or hospital. A patient’s condition can be monitored remotely, either freeing up a hospital bed which would have been required with previous monitoring equipment, or providing a better standard of care for the patient. On-line tools can help patients to understand their conditions better and make it easier for them to find and talk to fellow sufferers, for example through on-line support groups which boost patients’ spirits in the face of serious illness.
More efficient
Limits on resources – both in budgetary and staffing terms – weigh constantly on healthcare providers. eHealth tools and services enable more efficient organisation of resources and care provision leading to greater productivity. Electronic records make it easier to schedule appointments for patients, keep track of follow-ups, and ensure patients’ general practitioners are informed of the results of their referrals. When it comes to preventive healthcare, eHealth tools can help achieve much higher coverage, for example, ensuring that children receive the full programme of vaccinations at the correct ages. Thanks to these improvements, healthcare providers can better address increasing demand for healthcare, and cover the costs of new, advanced treatments.
Patient focused
Widespread implementation of eHealth will enable more “patient-friendly” healthcare services to be developed. This will offer healthcare providers a chance to become more flexible and better able to address the differing needs of individual patients. Whilst today patients have to go to the doctor (or the doctor come to them), on-line and mobile tools are already opening up the possibility of remote diagnosis. Similar tools can also enable health professionals who travel to see patients to provide more sophisticated treatments. eHealth services promise to raise the quality of care in remoter and rural areas, thanks to modern communications infrastructure.
A European market
Healthcare is a national responsibility in the European Union, and national authorities will continue to be the main players in a multicultural, multilingual Union. The European Commission’s role is to help national organisations in all Member States to learn from each other, thereby facilitating faster development of eHealth across the EU. In the healthcare sector throughout Europe, suppliers and users alike face many common challenges. By working together to develop and implement new eHealth systems, not only do patients in Europe benefit, but so too does European industry. As leaders in developing eHealth, European enterprises are in a strong position in the world marketplace, and the European Union aims to encourage them to build on their efforts up to now.
The EU has contributed more than €500 million of research funding to the development of eHealth tools and systems since the early 1990s. EU-supported projects have helped place Europe in a world-leading position in the use of regional health networks, electronic health records in primary care and deployment of health (smart) cards, in particular.
This article is taken from the European Commission’s Information Society Thematic Portal on ICTs for Health: http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/health/whatis_ehealth/index_en.htm
The European Commission has a dedicated website on ICT for Health and eHealth, where you can read more:
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/health/index_en.htm
“Envisioning a Learning Health Care System: The Electronic Primary Care Research Network, A Case Study”
Authors: Delaney B, Peterson K A., Speedie S, Taweel A, Arvanitis T, Hobbs R.
Reference: Ann Fam Med, January/February 2012, vol. 10, no. 1, 54-59.
16th WONCA Europe Conference, Malaga, 6-9 October 2011
“Translational Research and Patient Safety in Europe (TRANSFoRm)”
Brendan Delaney, King’s College London
The TRANSFoRm data privacy framework was presented at GMDS 2011 in Mainz, Germany (in German).
“TRANSFoRm: ein flexibles Datenschutz-Rahmenwerk für die integrative Forschung mit medizinischen Versorgungsdaten, Datenregistern und klinischen Studien”
Wolfgang Kuchinke (1), Christian Ohmann (1), Evert-Ben van Veen (2), Robert Verheij (3), Adel Taweel (4), Brendan Delaney (4) im Auftrag vom TRANSFoRm Consortium. (1) University of Duesseldorf, (2) MedLawConsult DenHaag, The Netherlands, (3) NIVEL, The Netherlands, (4) King’s College London, UK.
GMDS 2011, 28 September 2011, Mainz
The TRANSFoRm was presented at the 18th EuroSPI2 Conference in Roskilde University, Denmark, 27-29th June 2011.
“A Proposed Framework for Software Quality in the Healthcare and Medical Industry”
V. Shroff, L. Reid & I. Richardson, Lero The Irish Software Engineering Research Centre, University of Limerick, IE
European System & Software Process Improvement and Innovation (EuroSPI) 2011 Conference, Roskilde University, Roskilde, Denmark. 27-29th June 2011
24th IEEE-CS Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training, 22-24 May 2011, Honolulu, Hawaii
“Educating software engineers of the future: Software quality research through problem-based learning”
Ita Richardson (1), Louise Reid (1), Stephen B. Seidman (2), Bob Pattinson (3), Yvonne Delaney (3).
(1) Dept of Computer Scicence & Information Systems and Lero – the Irish Software Engineering Research Centre, University of Limerick, Ireland; (2) College of Science, Texas State University, USA; (3) Management Development Unit, Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick, Ireland.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no 247787 [TRANSFoRm].
