eHealth The Effective Application of

Information and Communication

Technologies
E.T. Kldiashvili
Georgian Telemedicine Union (Association)
Med-e-Tel 2008, Luxembourg
16-18 April, 2008
 Recent technological advancements and the accompanied
performance-price improvement have fostered the
development of eHealth significantly.

eHealth broadly refers to the use of information

technologies to distribute information or expertise
necessary for providing or delivering healthcare services
among geographically separated participants, including
physicians and patients.

eHealth has a great potentiality; however there are

unfortunately today few examples of large services.
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 The benefits of expanding its use are threefold: it can improve the quality
of healthcare services; it allows a better exploitation of limited hospital
resources and of expensive medical equipment; and it helps to address
the problem of unequal access to healthcare.

Throughout the world the number of people requiring special care is

increasing as the proportion of elderly people rises, at the same time, in a
high-tech age the expectations of the society for a better healthcare are
also rising.

eHealth offers the opportunity for improving healthcare services and for
making healthcare expertise available to underserved locations.

The application of information technology for medical purposes is

considered as an economical means of development of healthcare sector
in countries with middle and low incomes and of achieving national health
policy objectives with regards to the improvement and the extension of
healthcare.
In general, the uses of eHealth are for
1) primary diagnosis,
2) second opinion,
3) education /QA (quality assurance).

eHealth has left its childhood.

Its technical development is mature, and its use for primary

and secondary diagnosis has been expanded to a great
amount.
 The probability of an incorrect handling of a relevant
medical data, still dangerously high, mainly is due to:
environmental factors, instinctive factors, emotional
factors.

As a consequence the probability of a serious error

occurrence could be high and the probability off its
recognition and correction very low.

This frequently causes a repetition of exams in the

same time or in different medical units and it slows
down the diagnostic process (resources waste) and
the proper treatment.

Proper actions for improving the working procedures

have to be taken.
 The health care systems, and the education of health care
personnel, have to be reorganized to systems that function in a
cross-border fashion.

Prerequisites for this development shall be a specific emphasis on

equity of access, interoperability and standardization of systems
and protocols, security and legal aspects.

There are technical, legal, organizational, and financial problems

to be solved.

In spite of the potential which eHealth has as mechanism to

support health systems, a number of barriers, at various levels,
would need to be overcome for health systems to take full
advantage of these opportunities.

These barriers are not multidimensional constructed,

encompassing technical knowledge, economic viability,
organizational support and behavior modification.
 The three most important barriers to eHealth adoption were identified as: the problem of
interoperability (technical, cultural, systematic-financial reimbursement, inter-
organizational workflow), acceptance of a new health system, and regulatory constraints.

This emphasizes that telemedicine and eHealth implementation has to be accomplished by

simultaneously horizontal and vertical multisectorial action.

The most important and perspective application of telemedicine and eHealth is education of
health care professionals at a distance, so called distance education (eLearning).

It may be defined as the application of communication technologies to acquire new

knowledge or skills across the whole range of areas which will affect health care
professionals, and enrich their experience in rendering the best possible care to patients
through out the process of medical care.

Distance education has the abilities to apply new concepts, and ideas in which the learner
becomes an owner of that knowledge, without any respect to distance.

eHealth overall, and in particular eLearning, is significant part of health care revolution,
since the event of modern medicine. The addition of technology should not substitute for
failed pedagogical process, but technology should allow that educational process and the
message to be disseminated, and tailored to individual groups and professionals, by
retraining along some of the educational principles of traditional education.
 Perspectives and strategies for eHealth are currently evolving, as
emerging operative requirements would allow self-sustainable
large scale exploitation while recent technological developments
are available to support integrated and cost-effective solutions to
such requirements.

However, as far as we know few eHealth services have proceeded

to large scale exploitation, even after successful technological
demonstration phases.

eHealth by comparison with the usual medical service introduces

added value and a positive impact at social, economic and
cultural levels.

As a result eHealth is initiating to have an important influence on

many aspects of medical service in countries with low and middle
incomes.

When implemented well eHealth may allow these countries to

leapfrog over their developed neighbors in successful health care
delivery.
Thank you, very much for attention!

Any questions?