EC wants one market for interoperability

The deputy head of ICT for Health at the European Commission’s DG Information Society and Media has said that the wider adoption of e-health across Europe needs to be facilitated by a single market to enhance interoperability.

In an interview with E-Health Europe at the World of Health IT conference and exhibition in Barcelona, Ilias Iakovidis said: “We need indeed to create a single market in the healthcare sector by having common standards: for example to identify the same patient within all EU countries.”

“In a single market everyone competes on agreed specifications and standards. More competition makes better quality products at a lower price.

"However, today’s market is fragmented, companies have to develop software for their clients almost from scratch because medical services and systems vary in different hospitals.

He added that everyone needs to collaborate so that systems are interoperable.

“Although this is a rather expensive process, if companies can agree on common standards then applications could be reused. In this way it is possible to save money with IT.

"For this purpose companies need to agree on basic standards and how to implement interoperability.

“Recently they [companies] have started to understand that the market will not grow unless they join their forces and work on a labelling scheme: ‘you buy my product or you buy the competitor’s, but you will be able to connect both systems’.”

He also called for health ministers to understand that e-health is a priority in their health system and said that ministers from other areas, such as the telecommunications industry should collaborate on the same subject.

He added that although the biggest problem for e-health adoption across the majority of the EU is establishing how to put users in the driving seat, interoperability is “the biggest technical problem.”

Opinion and analysis: An analysis on the main conference themes can be found in E-Health Europe’s ‘WoHIT is me” opinion and analysis feature.