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2004
Baltic eHealth
Background
In the Baltic Sea Region (BSR) there is a tendency of rural migration. While studies show the lack of job opportunities is the most important reason for the majority of migration, research indicates that people leave for many other reasons. The growing lack of equal access to health care is one.
Aim of the project
With the introduction of eHealth services, Baltic eHealth's aim is to provide for more equal treatment opportunities in the BSR and thereby contributing to counteracting rural migration. eHealth is the use of emerging technologies to improve or enable health care electronically.
eHealth resources can reduce health disparities by applying new approaches to improve the health of underserved populations. In rural areas, where specialized medical attendance is becoming more limited, eHealth will have a large impact on the quality, availability and speed of patient care.
eHealth will give the patient a service that otherwise would not be possible locally. Thereby, the quality of service received rises and the patient avoids an inconvenient and in acute cases life-threatening movement to a bigger hospital.
Additionally, the introduction of eHealth services will make rural hospitals more attractive as career opportunities for young health professionals, as the eHealth element will be the link to a collegiate network with specialists from bigger hospitals.
This contribution to solving the problem of the shortage of health professionals in rural areas will ultimately prevent rural hospitals from closure. In the long run eHealth opens up to new opportunities for the creation of a range of specialized health care services delivered by local hospitals or private organisations located in rural areas.
So far, it has not yet been possible to implement eHealth on a large scale in the BSR. One problem has been that the technical infrastructure for setting up transnational eHealth services has not been established.
The higher objective is to counteract rural migration.
Project description
The first objective of the Baltic eHealth is to create this infrastructure by connecting health networks in largeparts of the BSR. This will enable hospitals from the BSR to collaborate and expand their resources on expertise health care.
The second objective for Baltic eHealth is to demonstrate and disseminate how other barriers for transnational eHealth can be removed. This will be demonstrated in two concrete eHealth pilots and we will find a solution to solve legal, financial, cultural and linguistic barriers for the establishment of eHealth services.
The overall goal of Baltic eHealth is with the access to a unique infrastructure and the proof of concept on how to solve barriers for eHealth, to inspire many other rural hospitals in the BSR to initiate similar initiatives that can contribute to a more balanced polycentric settlement structure in the BSR.
Project partners
The Danish Centre for Health Telematics is lead partner.
Project period
The project started in september 2004 and will last until august 2007.
Contact person at NST
Ernst Kloosterman, telephone +47 957 43 945
 Baltic eHealth web site |
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