The European Commission’s ePractice website has launched a new eHealth Procurers Forum where practitioners involved in e-health procurement can meet and share experiences.
A spokesperson told E-Health Europe: “The eHealth Procurers Forum is an open space to express opinions and exchange knowledge and where members are encouraged to provide contributions and participate in the discussions and events. It is not an official Commission site, instead the community is mainly focused on technical and organisational aspects of eHealth Procurement.”
The community is open to practitioners from European national and regional administrations, from public and private organisations, as well as interested parties from academia and research centres. With a wide variety of stakeholders, it is hoped the forum will provide different contributions, approaches and points of view.
The spokesperson added: “We have the ambitious objective to make the eHealth Procurers Forum the main reference point in Europe for exchanging ideas and finding knowledge on eHealth Procurement and related topics.
“Once you have joined the community, you can contribute in several ways. New initiatives and services for supporting the community are continuously launched and new collaboration possibilities for the members are made available.”
Members must be registered on the ePractice website and have public profiles on the portal to join the community.
Once an approved forum member, users can participate in blogs, submit case studies, add documents, propose and host web events and undertake electronic workshops.
Current discussion topics include computer assisted surgery, decision support systems, electronic health records, health portals, homecare and telecare services – including telemedicine services and portable systems for health monitoring.
Discussions are also ongoing around issues including hospital information systems, medical imaging, patient summary, personal health systems and regional/national health information networks.
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