Information and communication technologies (ICT) are potentially powerful instruments to strengthen health systems, with innovations ranging from electronic health records to information systems already transforming healthcare. These technologies show great promise in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) whose health systems face severe financial, infrastructural, technical and human resource constraints. The potential of mHealth and eHealth, as highly practical applications of ICT in healthcare for resource-constrained environments, becomes obvious when considering the following facts:

• At least 80% of the world's population lives in areas with mobile phone coverage, providing a technology platform for mHealth applications.
• By 2012, half of all individuals in remote areas of the world will have mobile phones.

In addition, the strategic use of ICT is seen as a tool for achieving the internationally agreed development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

In parallel, the EU has now a new policy framework in Global Health which for the first time brings together internal and external policies around the objective of improving the EU collective contribution to global health. This Communication aims to contribute to improve governance at global and national levels. In this context, the EU will work to enhance its current work on data collections on health care with relevant national and international bodies such as WHO, the OECD and the Health Metrics Network, to improve health information systems and the collection of comparable data and statistics to allow benchmarking and inform global, European and national policies. The EU will also continue to promote the use of ICT, including eHealth. The Communication also provides an opportunity to better link EU efforts in advancing health knowledge with global needs and, in turn, to better link this knowledge and evidence with our dialogues on health policies.

Finally, in the context of the Joint Africa-EU Strategy (JAES) and its Partnership on Science, Information Society and Space, eHealth has been identified as a priority domain and a political commitment. As far as implementation is concerned, the objective is to promote coordination among all public-private stakeholders, in order to avoid fragmentation of initiatives, dilution of resources and therefore maximising impact on the ground.

The European Commission will coordinate a Global eHealth Strategy Symposium at Med-e-Tel 2011 which aims to provide an intercultural and multidisciplinary framework in order to:

• Promote policy dialogue on how eHealth can address issues and challenges in the field of health in developing countries;
• Analyze transferability of evidences, barriers and factors for a useful deployment of eHealth through research projects.

Symposium details will be made available in the coming weeks. The event will feature contributions on the current African-EU policy initiatives, on national policies in African countries and on research and implementation activities in various regions throughout the world. The event will also be attended by representatives of various international organizations such as WHO and ITU.

The International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth (ISfTeH) is the international federation of national Telemedicine/eHealth associations, research institutions, care provider organizations, companies and individuals. ISfTeH is the organizer of the Med-e-Tel conference and is an NGO in Official Relations with WHO.

New Members
ISfTeH is proud to welcome two new corporate members in its international network: Polycom and GlobalMedia


Info about all member organizations can be found through the ISfTeH member directory.

Member news
Dr. Zakiuddin Ahmed, member of the eHealth Association of Pakistan (the national member for Pakistan in the ISfTeH), won the first position/award for their "National eHealth Business Plan" in the Business Acceleration Plan competition of the MIT Enterprise Forum of Pakistan, held in Karachi, Pakistan on December 11th and set up to foster innovation in the Pakistan entrepreneurial ecosystem. The judges included Kenneth Morse, Carlos Cashman, Scott Briggs, Hussain Dawood, Dr. Ishrat Hussain (IBA), Monis Rahman and other entrepreneurs from HEC, OPEN (Organization of Pakistani Entrepreneurs of North America) and the US. As a reward, Dr. Ahmed is nominated to attend the extensive course at MIT (Boston, MA, USA) where top US entrepreneurs will train and develop participants from all over the world.

The Armenian Association of Telemedicine (AATM) announced the launch of its new telemedicine project aimed to establish a fully functional telemedicine connection between a primary health care facility in Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR), and AATM central office, Yerevan, Armenia. This project, endorsed by the Government of NKR and conducted in association with the Union of Information Technology Enterprises of Armenia (UITE) and telemedicine R&D company Symotec LLC, is the second initiative of this kind, after establishment and successful exploitation of the demonstrational telemedicine model within the framework of the USAID-funded project titled "Capacity Building of the Armenian Association of Telemedicine to Result in Improved Primary Health Care Services in Armenia", in April-June, 2010.
The telemedicine system consists of two PC-based stations (the referral station at a primary care unit in Stepanaker, the capital city of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, and the consult station at the AATM's central office in downtown Yerevan, equipped with simple video-conferencing devices and commercially available medical peripherals, connected via high-speed internet providing a minimum of 2 Mbps of bandwidth. The referral site will be equipped with a set of medical digital devices; standard digital camera; an ultrasound scanner; and a digital ophthalmoscope.
The pilot project is supposed to become the first step in a larger initiative of telehealth network establishment in Nagorno-Karabakh, which is planned to commence in 2011.

Last August, a group of 12 individuals from different sectors of the telemedicine market were invited to get together and form the first ever South African Telemedicine Association (SATMA). Prof. Maurice Mars was elected in as the first President and Dr. Moretlo Molefi the first Vice-President of SATMA. The objective of SATMA as set out in its constitution is to promote and advance telemedicine and associated fields in South Africa. This initiative was born 4 years ago when the ISfTeH conference was hosted in Cape Town.
The mission of the South African Telemedicine Association is to promote and advance telemedicine and associated fields in South Africa through advocacy, co-operation, training, and research by bringing together people from the private and public sectors, industry and academia to share experience and expertise. This will be achieved via the following:
- engaging government and educating the public about telemedicine;
- actively working with Governmental Departments and NGO's to eliminate barriers to the use of telemedicine and facilitate private public partnerships;
- foster networking and collaboration among allied interests in medicine and technology;
- assist with topics relevant to the advancement and application of telemedicine within specific areas;
- promoting research, innovation and education;
- fostering academic research is critical to the growth of telemedicine;
- formation and publication of guidelines and standards;
- creating consumer awareness and support.
SATMA is the 35th national member in the ISfTeH.

GlobalMedia Group has signed a distributor agreement with Presto Infosolutions of India, a leading system integrator and Value Added Distributor headquartered in New Delhi. Presto will handle sales of GlobalMedia's telemedicine solutions in India.
GlobalMedia's Global Sales Director, Jay Culver, traveled to India for speaking appearances and meetings with Presto Director, Krishan Girdhar, and Vice Presidents, Sandeep Sachdeva and J.P. Pandey. Mr. Culver spoke at Telemedicon 2010, the 6th Annual Meeting of the Telemedicine Society of India (the national member for India in the ISfTeH).
At Telemedicon 2010, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik called upon doctors to create a credible platform for use of telemedicine so the patients belonging to poor families can get healthcare. Mr. Culver noted, "India has had telemedicine for about 20 years, but more can be done to make medical care accessible to the large numbers of rural villages and Prataps which are groups of villages." He added, "We believe that GlobalMedia's innovative technology can help make this happen."

Events

Med-e-Tel 2011, scheduled for 6-8 April 2011 in Luxembourg, will feature a variety of thematical sessions throughout the 3-day conference on topics such as chronic disease management, cybertherapy and rehabilitation, eHealth integration into routine medical practice, eLearning, electronic health records, home telehealth and independent living solutions, mobile health solutions, open source solutions in healthcare, regional initiatives in telemedicine/eHealth, legal and ethical aspects, global eHealth strategy, and more. Program details will become available in January 2011.

For companies offering solutions and technology in these areas, it is the perfect opportunity to allow Med-e-Tel participants to see and evaluate actual products, technologies and services and to find out how they can be beneficial for them, their organization, or their health system. Med-e-Tel offers great networking and marketing opportunities among a global audience of key telemedicine and eHealth stakeholders. It is the perfect forum to establish new contacts and partnerships.