eHealth supports health services

Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being. It is not only the absence of disease or infirmity. This World Health Organisation (WHO) definition of health encourages health systems across the world to adopt the paradigm of

citizen and patient-centred health services.

At the same time, all health services are faced with a number of similar challenges:

• improving the quality of services and medical outcomes,
• offering better and more equal access for all,
• making an optimal allocation of scarce resources,
• placing greater emphasis on public health issues, such as disease control and prevention,
• investing in health education, medical research, and knowledge about bio-medicine and technologies.

eHealth is the application of information and communications technologies (ICT) that support health care provision. It can have a great impact on health care delivery, public health, and health-related activities. It can have benefits for both low- and high-income countries and regions. eHealth information structures and networks, applications and services can help to deal with the challenges that are facing national health system. It can extend the reach of health care services to other countries. It can therefore support the growing demands for health services and the pressures that this places on already hard-working staff, the rights of citizens to have access to health care in different locations, and the generally increasing mobility of citizens in and around Europe.