The EU has given eHealth a Lead Market Initiative (LMI) classification, meaning the world’s biggest market is now committed to action through key policy instruments to speed up market development of fast growing products and services in the sector.
The LMI status will green-light a series of public sector programs to assist the accelerated development of eHealth – while mindful of not interfering with competitive forces.
eHealth was one of six areas granted LMI status. The others were in protective textiles, sustainable construction, recycling, bio-based products and renewable energies.
The LMI initiative calls for the urgent coordination of policy through ambitious action plans for these markets, to rapidly bring visible advantage to Europe’s economy and consumers.
An action plan for eHealth for the next two years will include legislative changes to foster innovation; public procurement in the area will be encouraged; standardisation programs will begin to be put in place.
An EU report found that without significant reforms, including better use of eHealth, health expenditure is expected to increase from 9 per cent of GDP at present to around 16 per cent by 2020 in response to an 'ageing' Europe.
Despite substantial research and development investments in eHealth, ICT investment in this area has lagged behind that in other service sectors.
Technical and organisational solutions often fail to be taken up because the market is strongly fragmented between different social security systems, a lack of interoperability between the various systems and lack of legal certainty.
Standardising various information exchange formats, for instance and certifying of interoperable systems should effectively overcome the interoperability barriers. Other measures within the framework of the LMI are clarification and guidance for applying the legal framework, networking of public procurers, as well as information of users, doctors.
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