VPH represented at the first Consultation meeting on eHealth ELSA
With the communication COM(2009)116 of 13 March 2009 "A Strategy for ICT R&D and Innovation in Europe: Raising the Game", the European Commission started a consultation process that could lead by 2014 to the launch of a European Large Scale Action (ELSA) on Electronic Health (eHealth). A number of key figures in the VPH community were invited to attend the first formal consultation meeting on 29 September 2009 in Brussels.
A peculiar characteristic of ELSA is that they are expected to cover the whole ground from applied research to large-scale deployment (see figure). For this reason, the consultation meeting saw the participation of representatives of various national health authorities, patient organisations, various European industries, policy-makers, and various clinical experts working in advisory positions. In addition representatives of the principal communities of practices involved with eHealth research were invited to the meeting, including experts working in the area of personal health systems, electronic health record, biomedical informatics and virtual physiological human. The latter was represented by Bernard de Bono, Peter Coveney, Alejandro Frangi, Martin Hofmann-Apitius, Rod Hose, Costas Marias, and Marco Viceconti. Peter Coveney and Marco Viceconti gave two talks, summarising the VPH perspective of eHealth. Marco Viceconti’s presentation is available online for consultation. The event was considered very constructive by all participants, who agreed on a general vision of future eHealth built around the concept of personalised, predictive and integrative medicine. This group will now work on a document that will represent the basis for the decision making process that will establish if this large-scale action, designed to run between 2014 and 2020, will become a reality. For more information please click here.