With the successful conclusion of the TM-Alliance project, this prestigious consortium has just formulated a strategic Vision for the European Commission. With the underlying philosophy that a vision must be far-sighted, clear, and holistic in order to have a good chance of being accepted and successfully implemented, the consortium formulated a vision for harnessing the salient attributes of information and communication technologies (ICT) towards facilitating citizen-centred healthcare in Europe by the year 2010.

eHealth systems have the capability to significantly enhance the move towards citizen centred healthcare. The vision and roadmap presented below clearly illustrate how a citizen will become the focus of the healthcare system and be in a position to control his/her own destiny.

The key to the success of this move will be the creation of a network of data repositories associated with the citizen and used by the principle healthcare “actors” of provider, educationalist, policy maker and payer. Via this eHealth system the citizen will be able to interact with providers of healthcare, receive education and be empowered to take greater control of their own health and healthcare. The collected data will enable better planning and assessment of preventative measures and individual cases or care plans. It will enable the citizen to be a partner with their healthcare professionals in making choices amongst available treatments. Finally it provides the basis for payment/re-imbursement systems. Its success depends on the trust of both citizen and healthcare professional. This has to be obtained by explicitly including authentication, security and confidentiality measures so that data is both legally and medically appropriate to the potential data user. This model is particularly adapted to a world in which more citizens, because of their age, will have one or more life restricting conditions or chronic illnesses.

The consortium warned, however, that this vision could not be accomplished without EU-wide standardization and interoperability, which are pre-requisites for progress towards implementing this vision. Indeed consensus on these measures will not only enable realization of this vision, but will also unleash the vast potential of technological ingenuity and investment in research and development in Europe.