Invited as keynote speaker at the Med-e-Tel Conference – The International eHealth Telemedicine and Health ICT Forum, the EFN General Secretary, Paul De Raeve, expressed about “eHealth potential in bringing health and social care closer to the community”. He took this opportunity to explain that as healthcare needs more local and global integration, education, communication and continuity of care are becoming key enablers for success deployment of e-health services. Technology has understood that in order to establish integrated systems and bringing care closer to the citizens and their community, it is necessary to design ‘fit for practice’ continuity of care solutions in ICT. And Nurses have a key role to play in this governance process. But without the right eSkills, technologies will not be fully integrated into existing healthcare pathways. Therefore, the eSkills of the health and social care professionals need to be enhanced and effectively integrated into their education and training at both undergraduate and postgraduate level as well as through Continuous Professional Development (CPD).
Also invited as keynote speaker, Dorota Kilanska from the Polish Nurses’ Association (Member of EFN), informed the audience on the achievements of EFN EU project ENS4Care, and explained that the eHealth guidance that is being developed by this project will put up to date information at the fingertips of service users, carers and those professionals supporting them. As such, Integrated care is essential to ensuring optimal outcomes are achieved for EU citizens and especially those burdened with chronic disease and complex care needs and who require attention from a range of professionals from primary and secondary health and social care sectors. eHealth is a key enabler for Integrated Care, used here to refer to the management and delivery of health services so that citizens receive a continuum of preventive and curative services, according to their needs over time and across different levels of the health system.
Med-e-Tel Conference, organised by the International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth (ISfTeH) in Luxembourg on 22-23 April 2015, brought together participants from over 40 countries around the world to share knowledge and experience in Telemedicine and eHealth.