Registration and lunch

Opening session

Welcome

The Baltic eHealth project – an overview

by Janne Rasmussen, Project manager, Danish Centre for Health Telematics, Odense, Denmark

The eHealth for Regions project – an overview

by Henning Bruun-Schmidt, IT-Chief, Region Northern Jutland, Denmark

FutureHealth:
Crossing our Boundaries to Quality Improvement

by Zoi Kolitsi, Managing Director, Quality and e-Health General Secretariat for Public Health at the Ministry of Health and Social Solidarity, Greece

The objective of the presentation is to bring into focus the issues concerning transforming health organisations to become members of a broad eHealth community, as treated within the FutureHealth Net project, an INTEREG 3C operation, 2003-2006. The development and modernisation of healthcare practices and structures is a long-term process, and an important objective of the operation is to create a common vision of the future health care, and consequently to define approaches for acceleration of the progress in that direction. The objective is pursued by analysing the existing treatment processes, by developing new models of delivering health care, and by proposing a transformation process for organisations.

Delivering Connected Health – The importance of cross-border eHealth

by Kevin J. Dean, Managing Director, Public Sector Healthcare, Internet Business Solutions Group, Cisco Systems

Economic and cultural pressure on health care caused by an ageing population and ever higher expectations of the quality and accessibility of care can only increase. And yet, in most countries, little priority or value is given to the collection and mobilisation of knowledge and information in managing a patient's journey through care – and even less attention is paid to the preventive role that knowledge and information can play in addressing disease early. This presentation will highlight the very important processes, technology and cultural issues which the Baltic eHealth Exchange has explored that will support the acceleration of "Connected Health" strategies; and the potential for further exploitation of the progress made in the project to date. Kevin Dean, who is an advisor to many regional and national government departments of health, will draw on his knowledge and experience to describe how the lessons learned from the Baltic eHealth Exchange can be reused and influence health policy and economics across Europe.

Coffee

Parallel sessions

Session A – Demonstration of cross-border eHealth applications

Remote reporting of Danish x-rays in Lithuania and Estonia

by Dr. Leslie Christensen, MD, Funen Hospital, Denmark; Dr. Nomeda Valeviciene, MD, Vilnius University Hospital, Lithuania; Dr. Peeter Ross, MD, East-Tallinn Central Hospital, Estonia

Ultrasound diagnostics on fetal morphology – second opinion via international health data network

by Nils Larsson, Midwife, Västerbotten University Hospital; Prof. Sturla Eik-Ness, MD, Trondheim University Hospital

In the eUltrasound pilot of the Baltic eHealth project the midwives in the rural areas of Västerbottan County, Sweden, get second opinions from specialists at National Center for Foetal Medicine at the University Hospital of Trondheim, Norway. In the eRadiology pilot of the Baltic eHealth project, X-rays taken at Funen Hospital in Denmark are being sent for reporting to Vilnius University Hospital and East Tallinn Central Hospital.

Cross-border service of telemonitoring in cardiology

Presentation by Werner Smidt, Managing Director, TSGZ (Telemedicine Service and Health Center) Bad Segeberg, Germany; Presentation by Holger Holst, MD, Hässleholm Hospital, Sweden

Cardiovascular diseases are in many countries the chief cause of mortality and morbidity. The use of telecardiology may reduce the decisional time and the pre-hospital phase for patients. A transnational heart network with a common multilingual server could help to improve the outcome cost-effective. Another application field is the chronic heart failures, which mostly have a high rate of hospitalisation and poor prognosis. Telemonitoring could help here to detect worsening heart failure and to maintain effective therapy. A daily self-measurement of weight, blood pressure and heart rate plus the weekly 12-lead ECG record will be presented.

eHealth records for chronic patients in cross-border treatment

by Lars Sjöberg, Project Manager, Region Skåne, Sweden

The "eHealth for Regions" project partners developed a "personal medical information stick" for patients with chronic diseases, who are often travelling in European neighbour countries for business, vacancies or other reasons. The USB stick contains medical history, administrative data, diagnostic documents and information. The pilots were running in Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Lithuania and Poland. The results and perspectives will be presented.

Parallel sessions

Session B – Regional need analysis

eHealth acceptance by patients and the public

by Thorsten Beck, Project Coordinator, AOK Schleswig-Holstein, Germany

eHealth acceptance by nurses and doctors

by Helli Kitinoja, Manager of International Affairs, Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences, Finland

eHealth acceptance by decision makers

by Roland Trill, Professor, Flensburg University of Applied Sciences, Germany

In 2006, a questionnaire survey was done in five partner countries of the eHealth for Regions project (Germany, Sweden, Poland, Lithuania, Finland). In each country about 500 questionnaires were sent to healthcare professionals, decision makers, the public and patients. The aim of the survey was to assess and analyse the overall situation about eHealth acceptance and awareness in the Baltic Sea region. The common and regional results will be presented.

The importance of healthcare for settlement preferences – a study from Denmark

by Jens Sørensen, Center for Rural Research and Development, Denmark

How can eHealth benefit rural areas? – a literature study from Norway

by Robert Myrvang, researcher PhD, Norwegian Centre for Telemedicine, Norway

Attitudes towards eHealth among future healthcare workers in Sweden

by Prof. Göran Westman MD, Umeaa University, Sweden

One of the major results of the Baltic eHealth project is the Rural eHealth report. The main research question of the report is if the introduction of eHealth services in rural areas can counteract the emigration from rural areas. To address this question studies have been carried out in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. In Denmark rural and urban citizens have been surveyed about their settlement preferences. In Sweden future healthcare workers have been asked about their attitudes towards eHealth and in Norway a literature study of successful eHealth projects has been performed.

Fruit and soft drinks

Regional perspectives and strategies on cross-border eHealth – a political discussion

with four regional politicians from the Baltic Sea Area moderated by James Kass

Free time

Conference dinner

Parallel sessions

Session C – Overcoming future barriers for cross-border eHealth

The Baltic Healthcare Network – an important step towards cross-border interoperability

by Claus Duedal Pedersen, Danish Centre for Health Telematics, Denmark

Legal implications of cross-border eHealth collaboration

by Leif Erik Nohr, Norwegian Centre for Telemedicine, Norway; Manolis Nymark, Socialstyelsen, Sweden

Organisational and financial challenges in eHealth services

by Line Linstad and Elin Breivik, Norwegian Centre for Telemedicine, Norway

Technical, legal, organisational and financial challenges addressed in practise – an eHealth collaboration contract

by Dr. Peder Jest, Medical Director, Funen Hospital, Denmark

The most important result of the Baltic eHealth project is the establishment of the Baltic Healthdata Network, which gives more than 200 hospitals from the Baltic Sea Region the technical possibility to collaborate with each other. Thereby a major technical obstacle is removed. However also non-technical obstacles to cross-border eHealth services exist and need to be addressed. Guidelines on how to overcome some of these legal, organisational and financial obstacles are being presented and discussed in this session. In addition an example of how the guidelines have been implemented in a business contract for a concrete remote radiology reporting collaboration between Denmark, Lithuania and Estonia is presented.

Parallel sessions

Session D – Needs and approaches for cross-border eHealth

Cross-border collaboration on health – motives and eHealth solutions

by Owe Svensson, Region Skåne, Sweden

PHAVIS - Optimizing the treatment of acute ST-elevation myocardial infarction in a regional perspective

by Johan Silfverstolpe MD, Office of the Ambulance Service, Crises and Emergency planning, Region Skåne, Sweden

The Danish eHealth Portal – how it can be used across borders

by Jens Rastrup Andersen, Sundhedsportalen - Danish national eHealth portal, Denmark

eHealth for regions has worked on describing the main incitements for cross-border cooperation. The distribution of medical specialists is uneven, a lack in one place and a surplus in another. eHealth solutions can bridge distances to distribute the competence more evenly. Specialised centres that treat rare cases need large uptake areas. Some uptake areas are crossing borders. The same condition is present for very expensive equipment that for economical reasons can be set up only at few places. Collaboration between referring health service providers and the medical teams at the specialised centres is facilitated by eHealth. These and other examples of cross-border cooperation will be presented as well as typical technology used in cross- border applications.

Coffee

Closing session

Cross-border eHealth – just for enthusiasts?
or – the value for citizens

by Mats Larson, Senior Business Development Director, Oracle Healthcare

Cross-border eHealth has been developed through projects and pilots during the last 10 years. In the Baltic Sea region we have seen a large number of, more or less, successful projects. They have covered anything from eye-care to radiology and joint clinical conferences. With this multitude of examples of how information can be communicated and processed – are we ready to finally draw any conclusions and/or make any clear decisions? Will the next 10 years only show an increasing number of projects and pilots, while practical and clinical deployment rests at a minimal level? This presentation will comment on aspects of the history of cross-border eHealth in the Baltic Sea regions and suggest some further steps to move closer to practical use and benefit for citizens.

Conclusions

by Dr. James Kass, European Space Agency (ESA)

The moderator of the conference will close the conference by presenting a summary of the main aspects, challenges and recommendations for the future regional, cross-border and transnational eHealth activities.

Lunch