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Newsletter
July 2014

"Sharing this Newsletter with over 20,000 Telemedicine & eHealth Professionals around the Globe"

In This Issue
Join the ISfTeH
Upcoming Telemedicine Events
Lifetime Achievement Awards
ISfTeH Board Members
New ISfTeH Members
Partnerships
ISfTeH Partners News
Letter from the Executive Director
ISfTeH Meetings and Conferences
Corporate Member Spotlight
Member News
Working Groups
Announcements
Join Our Mailing List

Join the ISfTeH

Are you heading a national telemedicine/eHealth organization?

 

Do you offer telemedicine products and solutions?

 

Are you doing research on telemedicine and eHealth applications and technologies?

 

Does your organization provide (or wants to offer) care services by means of telemedicine/eHealth technologies?

 

Are you engaged in healthcare policy?

 

If so, you may be interested in joining the ISfTeH network to expand your global reach or to learn from existing experiences and best practices.
  

 

Or send an 
e-mail with your question or membership request.

Upcoming ISfTeH-Supported

Telemedicine Events

 

5th International Conference on Transforming Healthcare with IT 

Kolkata, India 

Sept 5-6,2014
 __________

 

Saratov Fall Meeting - SFM'14

Saratov, Russia

Sept 22-26, 2014

 __________ 

 

EUSOMII

Warsaw, Poland 

Sept 24-27, 2014
__________  

 

19th ISfTeH International Conference - 5th Carrefour de la Telesante 

Paris, France

Oct 16-17, 2014

__________

 

European Congress on e-Cardiology & eHealth 

Bern, Switzerland

Oct 29-31, 2014 

__________

 

Telemedicon 2014 

Bhopal, India

Nov 7-9, 2014 

__________

 

Global Telehealth 2014

Durban, South Africa

Nov 10-11, 2014

__________  

   

ICT4HEALTH 

Durban, South Africa

Nov 10-11, 2014

__________

 

International Telecare & Telehealth Conference 2014 

Newport, South Wales, United Kingdom

Nov 17-18, 2014

__________ 

 

SFT-14 

Adelaide, Australia

Nov 17-18, 2014 

__________

 

BIOSTEC 2015 

Lisbon, Portugal

Jan 12-15, 2015

__________

 

Med-e-Tel 2015 

Luxembourg

Apr 22-24, 2015

__________ 

 

For more information on Overall Telemedicine Conferences and Events, click here.

    

ISfTeH Lifetime Achievement Awards

Prof. Louis Lareng, 2012 Recipient

Prof. Robert Merrell, 2013 Recipient

ISfTeH Board Members

President

Dr. Andy Fischer

Switzerland

 

Vice President

Mr. Steven Normandin

U.S.A.

 

Secretary and Treasurer

Mr. Frank Lievens

Belgium

Other Members

 

Prof. Rupert Gerzer

Germany

 

Dr. Pirkko Kouri 

Finland 

 

Prof. Rifat Latifi  

 Prof. Rifat Latifi  

U.S.A. 

  

Dr. Moretlo molefi  

Dr. Moretlo Lynette Molefi

South Africa

 

    

Prof. Anthony Maeder 

Australia  

 

 

Dr. Andre Petitet

France

  


Dr. Adolfo Sparenberg

Brazil 

 

Executive Director

 

Prof. Yunkap Kwankam

 Switzerland

ISfTeH New Members

       

National

 

Lithuanian Telemedicine Society,

Lithuania

 

Associate

  

Stichting Digitale Zorg.nl,

Netherlands

 

Corporate

 

Med Web,

U.S.A.

 

Sanofi Aventis Group,

France

 

Individuals

 

Ruth Bacigalupo,

United Kingdom

 

Pravin Banodkar,

India

 

Mary Caroline Skelton-Macedo,

Brazil

 

Charilaos(Harris) Lygidakis,

Italy

 

Mark Schnitzer,

U.A.E. 

 

Adel Eldahmy,

U.S.A.

 

Students

 

Mustafa Ozan Alpay,

Turkey

 

Nighat Khan,

United Kingdom

 

Asad Ali Siyal,

Pakistan

 

Stephen Clark,

United Kingdom

 

Robin Ohannessian,

France

 

Adeyemi Ladejobi,

Nigeria

 

Sean Hirsch,

U.S.A.

 

Nurses

  

Lucy Chibuogu Mbanefo,

Nigeria

 

Lady Murrugarra,

Peru

 

Patricia Camillo,

U.S.A.

 

Irene Kos,

Netherlands

 

Olivia Velez,

U.S.A.

 

Matthew Jennings,

United Kingdom

 

Sarah Giordano,

U.A.E.

The ISfTeH Newsletter is published quarterly for members of the telemedicine community to provide up-to-date information regarding current happenings in the international telemedicine and e-Health industry.

 

Feel free to share this Newsletter with business colleagues by forwarding it to your associates.

If you would like to submit an article or be added to our email distribution list, please email Aliana at [email protected].

Partnerships
Diplomatic Council
European Junior Doctors
European Medical Students Association
Geneva Health Forum
International Council of Nurses
International Federation of Medical Students' Associations

ISfTeH Partners News 

 

 

ICN Conference Seoul Korea, 19-23 June 2015

www.icn2015.com/

 

 

New Publication on the IFMSA Blog: 

A starting point for raising awareness about the relationship between Information Communication Technology and Health Care among Medical Students 

  

 
Journal of the ISfTeH 
  Your Paper submissions are welcome, click on the JISfTeH logo for more info!

 

"All Nations Summer Celebration" - K�nigstein, Germany
The ISfTeH was represented by Frank LIEVENS, Frederic LIEVENS and V�ronique THOUVENOT.
Letter from the Executive Director

   

Dear Reader,

 

As you prepare for the northern hemisphere summer and the inevitable vacation, I would like to remind you of the 19th Annual ISfTeH Conference which will take place in Paris, France on October 16-17, 2014. (Click here for more information in French). The organizing committee has worked very hard and I can assure you that you would be in for a treat at this event.

 

There is also some exciting news regarding the Global Knowledge Commons. I first announced this in the January 2014 issue of the Newsletter, in connection with an agenda item of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on Digital Health. Although the World Economic Forum has seen fit to disband the GAC Digital Health, in favor of distributing some of its agenda to new Councils, this idea has been taken up by the Innovation Working Group (IWG). The IWG was created in 2010 to tap into the potential of innovations that can accelerate progress towards the health MDGs, in support of the UN Secretary General's Global Strategy for Women's and Children's Health (Read more.

 

The potential for innovation, particularly in mHealth and eHealth (m-eHealth), to improve health is increasingly undisputed. However, there is a dire need to more widely share and replicate innovations that have been proven successful. The IWG has therefore set up a Task Force to address this issue. The Task Force will propose guidelines to be followed by repositories of information and knowledge relevant to innovation in m-eHealth health. These nodes will together become a networked repository of intelligence, the "Global Knowledge Commons for m-eHealth", that will provide knowledge and information by geography, thematic area, and actors, and lead to better use and re-use of m-eHealth experience.

 

The three major components of the Commons are:

   a)  A projects, products and services database - descriptions in a standardized format that is conducive to indexing and classification, and amenable to electronic searching;

      b)  A "Who is Who in eHealth"- individual experts and institutions; and

   c)  Knowledge resources repository - reusable m-eHealth knowledge objects, in various formats such as articles, presentations, videos, etc.

 

The Task force is co-chaired by Marc Mitchel of the Harvard School of Public Health and myself, and strikes a balance between wider inclusion of many sources of information, and the challenge of managing the its work to a rapid conclusion.

 

The initial focus will be on m-eHealth. As the boundaries of m-eHealth are quite fluid, this will naturally extend to other innovations beyond m-eHealth, hence the Commons will cover innovation in health in general. Moreover, the outcomes of the m-eHealth focus on repositories will benefit and inform other innovations encountering the same challenge.

 

The Commons will document information and knowledge in a format that makes them retrievable through a network of structured repository nodes, based on existing repositories. Particular emphasis will be placed on the user's perspective in developing the Commons. The Commons builds on the work already done by organizations and institutions such as: the WHO Global Observatory for eHealth, the Health Ingenuity eXchange, the GSMA mHealth Tracker, Grand Challenges Canada's, repository, the European Commission eHealth portal,and the ISfTeH's own Med-e-Tel knowledge repository, to name but these few.

 

We look forward to opening up the effort to wider participation when the initial framework has been agreed upon. So, stay tuned.

 

Sincerely,

Prof. S. Yunkap Kwankam

Executive Director


ISfTeH Meetings and Conferences

19th ISfTeH International Conference - 5th Carrefour de la Telesante

Paris, France

October 16 - 17, 2014

 

Every year, the ISfTeH co-organizes its annual International Conference linked with an event organized by one of its National Members worldwide. After Abuja (Nigeria) in 2012 and Takamatsu (Japan) in 2013, it will Paris (France) on October 16th-17th, 2014. The CATEL (Club of the Actors of Telehealth), ISfTeH National Member since 2006, has organized the "CARREFOUR de la TELESANTE" for the past 4 years, an event gathering 300 to 350 participants, coming from all the components of the telemedicine and telehealth field: institutional, healthcare professionals, providers, researchers, software designers, patients, academics. Therefore, it is with pride that the CATEL has accepted to host the 19th ISfTeH International Conference in conjunction with the 5th CARREFOUR. The conference will take place in the prestigious venue of the City of Science and Industry in Paris. These are the themes that will be developed in the various sessions:

  1. "What legislation and regulation have been adopted?"  
  2. "How efficient is telemedicine according to evaluating countries?" 
  3. "Which methodologies to support eHealth projects?"
  4. "What international collaborations are supported through telemedicine?"
  5. "New tools and services for eHealth: what contribution to economic development in investing nations?"
  6. "Is there meaningful eHealth exchange between developed and developing nations?"
  7. "What eHealth success stories are there worldwide?"
Each session, with French/English simultaneous translation, will be co-chaired by a French representative and an International representative. In a few days, a website will be officially opened on where you will find the conditions of participation and also the call for abstracts. Please consider participating and sharing your experiences in the field of telemedicine and telehealth in your country or part of the world. You can also contact us via e-mail if you wish to make a presentation. Please send your message to: [email protected] and [email protected].  
CATEL and the ISfTeH are pleased to invite you to Paris, capital of France, but also a most attractive tourism capital with the unchallenged reputation as "first world destination"!

Welcome and looking forward to meeting you in Paris next October. 

The annual ISfTeH International Conference is held each Fall.
Visit ISfTeH's Events webpage for more information.
________________
 
Luxembourg
April 22 - 24, 2015 

 Running parallel with: 

 

The Med-e-Tel 2015 conference will take place on 22-24 April 2015 in Luxembourg. Med-e-Tel is the annual event of the International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth.

The Med-e-Tel event is an important tool to realize the ISfTeH's mission of sharing practical experience and knowledge and forming new partnerships and collaborations among telemedicine/eHealth stakeholders from around the world. Med-e-Tel brings people face-to-face and enhances the exchange of experience/information. Med-e-Tel is attended yearly by about 500 participants from some 40-50 countries worldwide. 

The Med-e-Tel website contains preliminary details about the event and will gradually be updated in the coming months. Presentations from all previous events can also still be found in the Med-e-Tel Knowledge Resource center. The Med-e-Tel 2014 conference topics will include Telehealth for Chronic Disease Management, Telehealth Service Standards, Telenursing, eLearning, Open Source Software in Healthcare, eHealth in Low Resource Settings and Developing Countries, and much more. The Med-e-Tel 2015 exhibition will feature Telemedicine and eHealth products and solutions from leading companies and providers.

For more information, contact [email protected] or visit www.medetel.eu.
Corporate Member Spotlight
Telemedicine Technologies(TELE-MT)

TELE-MT was founded in 2013 as a company to launch a new project or to be more exact, to start making a dream come true. A dream of making remote care of the relatives especially elderly people possible in the Russian Federation. As soon as one of the founders could leave a big company she worked for as CMO for a short brake to give birth for a child we decided to start. The same year a very capable and effective manager joined the team and gave a new push to the project with his strong background in building a big net in laboratory business in one of the leading companies in Russia.  

 

TELE-MT is launching a first complex remote control of health pan-country service in Russian. We have a number of local more or less successful more or less private or governmental projects in e-health in Russian currently. But DOCTOR 24/7 has an entirely different philosophy. We are building a service company to make the telemedicine and e-health technologies available for a mass of Russian people.

 

We have four major groups of services: 1) service for the elderly or those who need special care, 2) service for the pregnant women and newborns, 3) service for those who suffer from heart diseases, and 4) service for those who wants to live healthy way. Our main suppliers and partners currently are two Israeli companies - Aerotel and LifeWatch. In the year 2014 we've become the exclusive dealer of Aerotel in Russia and we offer the entire product portfolio starting with the tele-ecg available right now to close launching the personal targeting and alarming systems. To support the ecg equipment we've opened the contact centre accepting the calls from all parts of Russia 24/7 just like our project name sounds - DOCTOR 24/7.

 

We believe that the core idea of our project is to stay truly medical - that is why we were searching for a strong professional partner for quite a long period of time. And we are extremely proud that we signed the agreement with the highly motivated team of one of the most developed and professional research institution in Russia with the headquarters based in Moscow - the National Research Center for Preventive Medicine of the Ministry of Healthcare of the Russian Federation. We are planning a big expansion to the regions of Russia with special thanks the CEO of the National Research Center - Dr Boitsov - for his bright ideas, experience and strong belief. We started the sub-project for pregnant women - we have a number of patients who hired the equipment - and we are in the process of negotiations with a number of manufacturers of the tools for newborns as well from all around the world and even looking forward to developing our own findings and ideas!

 

We are always searching for new technologies and tools as our main idea is to give an opportunity of the complex service whatever our patients need. All new tool offers and manufacturers from all over the world are very much welcomed to discuss the cooperation. We are extremely grateful to the team of ISfTeH and very proud to be a member of the Society as it gives us the broader view and helps us moving forward inspired by your experience and ideas. We hope the way we are making our dream come true can inspire you to move forward too in making the progress in medicine even faster meeting the future today.

 

Best regards and good luck for your projects and dreams,

Mrs Elizaveta Tikhonova

CMO and founder of TELE-MT

www.DOCTOR24-7.ru


Demonstration in one of

the Russian Clinics


At Med-e-Tel 2014 with the breaking technologies inventors from Czech Republic

_______________________________________

 

A different ISfTeH Member will be spotlighted each quarter.
ISfTeH Member News 

 

National Member News 

 

Armenian Association of Telemedicine is partnering with a Multinational Educational Project on Biomedical Engineering 

 

Armenian Association of Telemedicine is participating in an important multinational educational initiative in the field of medical technologies. The project titled "Biomedical Engineering Education Tempus Initiative in Eastern Neighboring Area" (BME-ENA) funded by the European Commission through its long-lasting higher education reform program (TEMPUS IV), involves besides AATM, 16 universities from 7 EU countries (Belgium, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Poland, Romania, and Slovenia), and 4 countries of the so-called Eastern Neighboring Area (ENA) - Armenia, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. The project, which is set to run for 3 years (December 2013 through November 2016) and is initiated and coordinated by the University of Patras in Greece, aims to develop and establish at the participating universities in Armenia, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine a joint MSc program in Biomedical Engineering, including Healthcare Information and Communication Technologies, eHealth and telemedicine. Participating universities from Armenia are two leading higher education institutions in biomedical and technical fields - the Russian-Armenian (Slavonic) University (RAU) and the State Engineering University of Armenia (SEUA, "The Polytechnic"). AATM (which is the only non-governmental professional organization in the consortium) is going to play an important role in the successful project implementation in Armenia, providing its expertise in developing and implementing the program parts related to the Healthcare Information and Communication Technologies (including telemedicine and eHealth), coordinating the project at the country level, and ensuring interaction, communication and collaboration between the interested stakeholders (academia, healthcare institutions, and regulatory authorities). It is expected that the first students will be enrolled in the newly established master's program in September 2015, for a two-year 120 European credits extensive teaching program with significant input not only from local faculty, but also from leading experts in the field of biomedical technologies from many EU universities. The graduates of the program will receive internationally recognized diplomas opening broad employment perspectives not only in Armenia, but essentially in all European countries. However, the most significant output of the project should be development of highly skilled human resources for rapidly growing field of medical technologies, in the participating Eastern European countries. It will be especially relevant for Armenia, considering several upcoming telemedicine and eHealth programs.

 

More detailed information on the project activities will be available soon on the website of the project as well as through AATM website and social media platforms.  

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ATHS (Australia & New Zealand) & SATMA (South Africa)
CALL FOR PAPERS
3rd International Conference on Global Telehealth - GT2014
(to be held jointly with ICT4Health Conference 2014)
"Integrated, Innovative, Scalable and Sustainable Solutions" 
The Third Global Telehealth Conference, Global Telehealth 2014, will take place in Durban, South Africa, on 10-11 November. Following two previous events convened by ATHS in Australia, the GT2014 conference will be co-hosted by SATMA, jointly with the ICT4Health meeting. Full paper submissions for peer review are invited, and if accepted will be published as book chapters in an IOS Press monograph. Contributions with an international and developing world focus are especially welcome. More details can be found here. 

_____________________________

 

Institutional Member News

 

    

Click here to read the IVeH's Newsletter: Issue 1, 2014.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

 

MedCom (DK) Publication

 

MedCom was established in 1994 as a public funded, non profit cooperation. MedCom facilitates the cooperation between authorities, organisations and private firms linked to the Danish healthcare sector. Click here to read more about the results of their work in 2012-2013.  

 

For additional information about this, feel free to contact:

Lars Hulbaek

Deputy Manager, MedCom

Phone: +45 40368615

e-mail: [email protected] 

www.medcom.dk 

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

 

Apollo Telemedicine Network Foundation (India)
                  "Virtual Doctor in Your Apartment"

 

In a "first of its kind" initiative, Apollo Telehealth Services is providing 24/7 "Remote Healthcare" in the apartment complexes. Jain Housing & Constructions, a leading player in the construction industry for the last 25 years, having built 10 million sq. ft. in various places of South India's major cities like, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Coimbatore, Kochi announced that their new complex Inseli Park coming up at OMR Padur will now be provided with healthcare services round the clock. Read more. 

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Millennia2025 Foundation

Women Session at Med-e-Tel 2014

Speakers of the Women Special Session: left to right D. Manset, J. Lemaire, J. Serrano Pons, S. Coumel, L. Murrugarra, V. Kola, A. Schmauss, C. Forget, V. Thouvenot, K. Holmes, L. Lhotska.
For the second year running, the Special Session on Women was organized at Med-e-Tel by the Women Observatory for eHealth (WeObservatory) and the ISfTeH Working Group on Women (WoW), with support from Connecting Nurses, Connecting Midwives and Sanofi. Read the full report on the Women Session at Med-e-Tel 2014.

_________________________

 

Corporate Member News

 

SUNPA & TELEMEDICINE AFRICA
"Citizens to benefit from Telemedicine Facility in Africa"

Technology will play a critical role in South Africa's ability to deliver improved service delivery in health to all of its citizens

 

Established initially as a proof of concept at The Campus, in Bryanston South Africa, The Virtual Telehealth Centre represents an attempt to bridge the gap that exists in the provision of health care services, where access and availability favours those who are closer to the urban areas. Rural communities, underdeveloped and impoverished communities including women and children who need healthcare services the most, are faced with challenges when it comes to access to quality healthcare.

The Virtual Telehealth Centre is a dedicated telemedicine centre which leverages the collective advances in technology to extend the continuum of care. Telemedicine enables, through the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and ICT enabled peripheral medical equipment, the clinical interaction between medical providers to improve the delivery of healthcare services to those that need them most. Read the entire article online or download the PDF here.  

 

Welcome New Corporate Members:

 

MedWeb, U.S.A.
SANOFI AVENTIS Groupe, France

   

More details about these companies will be highlighted in the next Newsletter.  

_______________________

 

Individual Member News

   

Malcolm FISK (U.K.), Frederic LIEVENS (Belgium), Malina JORDANOVA (Bulgaria)

European Code of Practice for Telehealth Services

 

The European Code of Practice for Telehealth Services has now been posted on the www.telehealthcode.eu website. There you will find the following info:

  • The 2014 version
  • How telehealth services can be assessed and accredited
  • How services can obtain the guidelines that underpin each of the Code's 54 clauses
  • Fliers that show strong support of the European Code from key people/organizations

The assessment process has tried to break away from narrow traditional (tick box) approaches. And so, whilst there is an element of inspection within "assessments", there is also guidance and support.

_________________________

 

Nurse Member News

 

ICN Conference and CNR - Seoul, Korea June 19-23, 2015

Call for Abstracts 

 

The call for abstracts has been published and nurses are strongly encouraged to submit abstracts and plan to attend this exciting conference, "Global Citizen, Global Nursing." The eHealth Programme is pleased to note that a Main Session of the conference will be on the topic of eHealth. The Virginia Henderson Lecture will be given by a nurse who is known internationally for her work and expertise in informatics. In addition there will be a Consortium meeting for the ICN-Accredited International Classification for Nursing Practice (ICNP) Research & Development Centres and Translators, an ICNP Workshop and a session for the ICN Telenursing Network. The deadline for abstract submissions is 7 October 2014 and those with accepted abstracts must register for the conference not later than 11 February 2015.

 

I.C.N. eHealth Programme

 

You will find info concerning the I.C.N. eHealth program at the links below:

For additional info, please contact Dr. Claudia BARTZ ([email protected]).
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Lady MURRUGARRA (Peru)

"Telemedicine in the Developing World"

 

Telemedicine in the developing world mirrors prevention activities to a large extent. The primary benefit of telemedicine lies in facilitating remote access to prevention and care (i.e. by increasing speed of access and/or reducing cost of access). It is thus a technique which can be used to reduce inequity of access to health care. Since the developing world contains many examples of barriers to accessible health care, there are good reasons for supposing, a priori, that telemedicine would be a useful technique in the 21st century.

The information and communication technology (ICT) 'revolution' has been hailed as the enabling force for developing countries to become more active participants in the global economy. Developed countries are concerned about how to address the dramatic changes in development, urbanization, ageing environmental shifts that are modifying in the diseases. Two cultural factors, language and education matter a lot in ICT application by young generation. The use of education technology to make a difference is not just providing nurses with access to ICT, but also providing integrity properly in the hospital by using the appropriate application at different areas.

 

Objective:
e-PREVENTION's goal is to accelerate technology development, deployment, and implementation for sustainability and widespread public health impact.

Activities: 

1) Dissemination and increased visibility of selected ePrevention virtual courses and workshops as these activities offer a flexible and interactive learning mode.

2) Support to facilitate availability and access to training opportunities in ePrevention for the personal health in the area rural, indigenous people and communities and online library and multimedia resources

3) Telemedicine + e-Mobile (patient - staff health connection) : information sharing to promote women's access to science, technology and innovation, encouraging the interest of girls and young women in scientific and technological fields. MOBILE COMMUNICATIONS CAN SIMPLIFY  PATIENTS & PERSONAL HEALTHS' LIFE! 

4) Increased visibility of the personal of health in the Latin America and Caribbean
5) Connect with well-known telemedicine networks, which are currently operating in Latin America and  Caribbean.

Some helpful links: 

http://www.elconfidencial.com/alma-corazon-vida/2013-12-27/el-90-del-dinero-para-investigacion-medica-se-gasta-en-el-10-de-la-poblacion_70530/ 

http://elcomercio.pe/blog/vidayfuturo/2012/11/entrevista-usamos-inteligencia 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=So27rzdBEgY 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TgT6d3ABX8 

http://tics2007.wordpress.com/2009/02/13/the-international-ehealth-telemedicine-and-health-ict-forum/ 

Working Groups
 

WoW

 

"Women, eHealth and Telemedicine at All Ages of Life: From Birth to Old Age"

 

For the second year running, the Special Session on Women was organized at Med-e-Tel by the Women Observatory for eHealth (WeObservatory) and the ISfTeH Working Group on Women (WoW), with support from Connecting Nurses, Connecting Midwives and Sanofi.

Thirteen presentations were made during the session, covering various aspects of eHealth and Telemedicine in diverse contexts, to address the health needs of women in underserved areas, through big data solutions, use of social media, education and research, multilingualism and connected platforms.

In countries like Ethiopia, Peru and Kosovo, speakers highlighted the empowerment of women's health by ICT, such as mobile phones for maternal health, One Laptop per Child for ePrevention and Telemedicine for Diabetic Footcare. ICT is used in these contexts to expand health information and knowledge in remote and under-deserved locations and communities. Reaching women and empowering health professionals remain an immense challenge. Common barriers identified in the Women and eHealth Study 2010 - 2012[1] were emphasized by the speakers - barriers such as absence of communication in local languages, cost, local maintenance capability, and long term sustainability of projects.

Connected platforms offer impressive opportunities for women, in particular nurses and midwives. Connecting Nurses[2] and Connecting Midwives[3] facilitate the exchange of innovative solutions through interactive professional connections and forums. Through these online exchanges, nurses and midwives can improve professional practice, thereby, reducing maternal and newborn mortality and improving health outcomes for women, especially those in the world's most underserved communities. In partnership with the Millennia2025 Women and Innovation Foundation, both platforms are engaged into the Women Observatory for eHealth (WeObservatory[4]) that provides support to selected projects[5] in Africa, America, Asia and Europe. These projects cover Mental Health (Canada and Congo DR), HIV (Canada), ePrevention (Peru), Wounds Care (France), Diabetic FootCare (Kosovo), Maternal Health (Spain, Nigeria, Philippines), Elderly (Philippines) and Emergencies during disasters (Philippines). More projects will join the WeObservatory by end 2014.

The Women Session at Med-e-Tel 2014 offered a dynamic opportunity to share expertise and field experiences on eHealth and Telemedicine solutions addressing women's health needs. Further actions are planned along the four dimensions of women in eHealth and Telemedicine described in the WeHealth Study 2010 - 2012, namely: women as beneficiaries, as health professionals, as IT engineers, and as leaders. The Women Session at Med-e-Tel 2015 will focus on Education Online and eLearning.

Announcements

ISfTeH Discussion Forum

 

A discussion forum is open on the ISfTeH website, and is accessible to all duly registered members. Login with your username and password and you will see the "Discussion Forum" appearing on the top menu toolbar. In the Discussion Forum you will find the list of ongoing discussions or messages.

 

We encourage all members to use regularly this communication tool and to participate as such in dissemination of available experiences and information. 

 

Should you have any additional questions, please submit via: [email protected]