As part of its EU presidency the Swedish government have presented a report on eHealth. It focuses on the impact on healthcare in general by introducing eHealth, but also the effects of not doing so. For instance it is concluded that eHealth is not anymore an issue of technology but rather implementation. The study have focused on six EU states, Czech, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Spain and Great Britain. The report shows that in these countries significant savings and increased patient security can be obtained by introducing eHealth solutions in the day-to-day healthcare practice. The study was conducted by Gartner on behalf of The Ministry of Health and Social Affairs in Sweden.
For the Swedish government, eHealth is considered one of the top priority issues during the Swedish EU presidency in 2009.
(Extract from executive summary)
eHealth for a Healthier Europe - opportunities for a better use of healthcare resources
There is a significant healthcare improvement potential using eHealth as a catalyst. For the five political goals used in the study, the technology adoption is lower than 30%. The potential improvements are of such magnitude that they demand both attention and action from all member states.
Examples of quantified potentials include:
• 5 million yearly outpatient prescription errors could be avoided through the use of Electronic Transfer of Prescriptions.
• 100,000 yearly inpatient adverse drug events could be avoided through Computerised Physician Order Entry and Clinical Decision Support. This would in turn free up 700,000 bed-days yearly, an opportunity for increasing throughput and decreasing waiting times, corresponding to a value of almost €300 million.
• 9 million bed-days yearly could be freed up through the use of Computer-Based Patient Records, an opportunity for either increasing throughput or decreasing waiting times, corresponding to a value of nearly €3,7 billion.
This study was conducted by Gartner on behalf of The Ministry of Health and Social
Affairs in Sweden.
Download Report (PDF)