WRITTEN QUESTION E-1242/01

by Juan Naranjo Escobar (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(26 April 2001)

Subject: Telemedicine in Europe

The application of the technology of the information society to medicine was the theme of the first International Congress on Telemedicine held in Madrid recently. Initial results show that the use of teleconsulting via videoconference reduces visits to hospital for appointments by 75 %, and visits to emergency departments by up to 90 %.

Since 1999 an experiment has been conducted at the Severo Ochoa Hospital in Madrid, with the participation of a group on bioengineering and telemedicine from the city's Complutense University, on telemedicine and home dialysis, as part of the Attract project financed by the European Union. This experiment is the first of its kind in Europe, although countries such as the United States and Canada frequently use telemedicine in a wide range of areas.

What are the Commission's views on the use of telemedicine in Europe to date? How does it intend to encourage more widespread use of telemedicine, to enable Europe to catch up with North America?

Answer given by Mr Liikanen on behalf of the Commission

(3 September 2001)

Analysis of the state of play of the (civil) implementation of cost-effective telemedicine services in North American countries and in Europe leads the Commission services to the conclusion that the European position in this domain is encouraging as compared to that in North America.

Commission-funded research (notably since the third Framework Programme for research and technological development (RTD)) has played a clearly identifiable role: some project products have already been commercialised in Member States and beyond. For the care of the older populations and those suffering from chronic illnesses, the use of telemedicine is a very important tool.

Applications for telepathology and teleradiology allowing the options of remote consultation and requests of second opinion have been commercialised and the company which commercialises these tools will also commercialise them in the United States. An application developed for electronic management of clinical trials has been intensively validated (six thousand cardiology patients) and is in use in pharmaceutical companies for world-wide clinical research. This product is a market leader in its field. The company involved in its commercialisation has grown from a start-up after an initial Commission-funded project to a company with thirty staff members today. A third company was founded in follow-up to the development of a web-enabled patient record system. It should be noted that the three companies mentioned above have collaborated in order to have a competitive critical mass. As a consequence, the three above-mentioned products are integrated and will soon be commercialised as an integrated line of products. Validation of this integration has just been finalised: the three above-mentioned products work in an integrated fashion in the transplantation portal used for donor - recipient matching in kidney and, to a lesser extent, liver transplantation in some Western and Eastern European countries.

The above forms just an example, summarising successful Community-funded research in the area of telemedicine.

In addition, there is a continuous exchange between researchers in North American countries and Europe. European projects regularly participate to international telemedicine conferences.

The Commission is, moreover, in the process of identifying bottlenecks towards a more widespread implementation of the products for which the results have been successfully validated. One potential initiative is the organisation of a co-ordinated Commission approach towards major user groups such as organisations of health professionals and pharmaceutical companies in order to ensure that, besides cost-effectiveness, medical benefits are fully validated and exploited.

The results of such an action would create the necessary data and arguments allowing Member States to adapt their implementation strategies. In this context, the Commission has already set up, since the fourth Framework Programme (1994-1998) for RTD, a working group of representatives of the Member States Health's Ministries (called Health Working Party). The national delegates have been asked to formulate existing national strategic plans for implementation of health Telematics, including telemedicine, in Europe.

A copy of the Telemedicine Glossary working document, third edition, which summarises, among others, results by projects will be sent direct to the Honourable Member and to the Parliament's Secretariat.