Ebru Başak Aköz

Ebru Başak Aköz is the National ICT Expert for the EU Framework Programmes, Information and Communication Programme Committee representing Turkey. She is also the National Contact Point for Research Infrastructures.

After completing her undergraduate degree studies in the Department of Physics at Middle East Technical University in 1995, she started her career in the private sector in the area of Medical Imaging and eHealth in different posts for a period of 9 years. From September 2004 onwards, she has been working for The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK), which is the leading agency for management, funding and research in Turkey. It was established in 1963 with a mission to advance science and technology, conduct research and support Turkish researchers. The Council is an autonomous institution and is governed by a Scientific Board whose members are selected from prominent scholars from universities, industry and research institutions. TÜBİTAK is responsible for promoting, developing, organizing, conducting and coordinating research and development in line with national targets and priorities.

Besides her main duties, she has also taken part as project manager for a various number of SSA Projects at the IST (Information Society Technologies) Priority during FP6. These are EP-IST, Idealist34, IST-MENTOR+, CEEC IST NET and EURO-MEDANET. During FP7 at the ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) Area she has managed the IST-WORLD, Idealist7FP and HAGRID Projects.

General IT Architecture in the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) is an EU agency established in 2005 with the mission to identify, assess and communicate current and emerging threats to human health posed by infectious diseases. In order to give a smooth interface for users of ECDC's applications an enterprise-wide, single sign-on solution has been implemented. In order to provide a timely and secure user nomination process a centralized approach has been adopted. ECDC desires a tight integration of its applications. Therefore it has developed over time a rich service layer. These services are available to all its applications and the use of them is highly encouraged. This has started to reward the organization with standard vocabulary and metadata, reuse of functionality, and transparency across applications.

Leonora Brooke

Mrs Leonora Brooke is an IT architect at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control in Stockholm, Sweden. Mrs Brooke is charged with assisting the ECDC to develop an enterprise wide architecture, standardizing project workflows across ECDC, and mentoring project managers. Part of this effort is centralizing and standardizing a nomination and user management system and developing integrated services.

Mrs Brooke is a licensed Project Manager, PMP, and holds a Master of Science degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Before working at the ECDC Mrs Brooke worked from 2001 to 2008 as a consultant at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, GA, USA. Before 2001 Mrs Brooke worked in the commercial and health sector.

Mrs Brooke has held positions as a project manager; system, business, and data analyst; database architect and administrator; and as a developer.

Mrs Brooke has had leading positions in the development of public health applications in the fields of Infectious Disease, Public Health Informatics, and Travel Medicine.

From internal development to a successful eHealth offering!

Glenn Kenneth Bruun spearheaded the "digital hospital project" for the National University Hospital of Norway, Rikshospitalet, as the CIO from 1998 to 2008. Becoming a true digital hospital needed a lot of re-thinking of how ICT technology should support the clinical processes, how it should be adopted in the clinics but also be supportive to a changing system and vendor market. The project itself ended up in the development of a clinical portal, embracing a multi vendor and application landscape, an evolutionary approach to change and adoption and focusing on EPR as a toolbox for developing new healthcare services rather than being the end goal itself. (ref)

After a successful implementation in the National Hospital, the resulting product, Plexus Portal, was commercialised in the company CSAM Health. CSAM Health is now delivering this product in the European Market and Russia.

Glenn Kenneth Bruun is today the Chief Innovation Officer at CSAM Health, focusing on the new development of eHealth solutions in the changing landscape of healthcare delivery. One of the key components of CSAM Health's success is the constant focus on including the user environments in the innovation processes, which has been done for cancer treatment, maternity and PAS systems, etc.

This presentation will focus on the reason for a big university hospital to develop a portal and integration strategy as their main ICT strategy, their adoption and value proposal, what the solution is today, and the road ahead for CSAM Health in the future development of eHealth solutions.

Glenn Kenneth Bruun

Glenn Kenneth Bruun is the Chief Innovation Officer at CSAM Health, a company focusing on innovative eHealth solutions within the changing structures of healthcare delivery. Mr Bruun is overseeing the company group's innovation, product development and market activities. Before joining CSAM Health in 08, Mr. Bruun was the CIO for ten years at Rikshospitalet National University Hospital. At Rikshospitalet he spearheaded the project to turn the top European research hospital into a truly digital hospital. Mr Bruun is chairing the Norwegian Health and IT Innovation network focusing on eHealth innovation in Norway, he is a part of the program committee of WoHIT HIMSS Europe, and he was recently appointed by the Norwegian government to participate in a committee to develop an official Norwegian report on how Norway may develop new innovative ways of healthcare delivery in the social sector. Mr. Bruun frequently participates in presentations, debates and discussion within the domain of eHealth.

The Medical Open Source project implementation in Argentina

Medical is an Open Source project that encompasses the functionality of an Electronical Medical Record, a Hospital Information System and a Health Information System. We have chosen a Primary Health Care center in La Rioja, Argentina as a pilot project. The goal is to provide a centralized, standard based information system that keeps track of the socio-economic conditions of families, as well as providing the health authorities with solid epidemiological data, to optimize the health campaigns in the region.

Luis Falcón

Luis Falcón (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain, 1970) holds a degree in Computer Science and Mathematics from the California State University at Northridge. He currently lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he studies Medicine at the Barcelo University.

He is the founder and CEO of Thymbra (www.thymbra.com), a company with a focus on ERP and Health Informatics.

In 2006 Luis Falcón founded the "Linux Solidario" (www.linuxsolidario.org) project. Linux Solidario is a non-profit project aimed at developing countries, in the areas of education and health. Luis Falcón is a free software activist, so all the programs involved in Linux Solidario are open source.

He is the author of Medical (http://medical.sourceforge.net), an open source Electronic Medical Record, Hospital and Health Information System. Medical is part of the Linux Solidario project. Medical has a strong focus on family medicine and promotion of health and disease prevention in emerging economies.

eHealth: enabling Health

Frederic Lievens¹, Malina Jordanova^2,3
1International Coordinator, Med-e-Tel, Belgium, medetel@skynet.be
²Solar-Terrestrial Influences Institute, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Bulgaria, mjordan@bas.bg
³Educational Program Coordinator, Med-e-Tel, Bulgaria

One of the major challenges (next to interoperability, standardization, privacy, reimbursement and other legal and technical issues) in the deployment and implementation of eHealth technologies and applications, is to create awareness and acceptance of these tools among health professionals and patients/citizens.

eHealth is - and needs to be presented to health professionals and patients/citizens - as an enabler and a tool to support health care, social care, disease prevention, disease management, and related administrative processes.

Basic lifestyle, care services, medical devices, assistive technology, pharmaceuticals remain a prerequisite for health and well-being. eHealth is merely (!) the application of ICT to support the traditional process of health care provision and should be a quasi-invisible layer on top of regular medical, health and social care activities, which helps to improve efficiency, increase accessibility and responsiveness, enhance quality of life and quality of care. eHealth should be given a positive connotation through change management and social marketing, whereby the end user (both professionals and patients) recognizes the positive added value of technology.

The so-called Telemedicine Communication of the European Commission (November 2008) has recognized the need for building confidence in and acceptance of telemedicine and eHealth services and calls for more evidence on the efficiency and effectiveness of telemedicine and eHealth. Also, the Good eHealth study has found that a key theme of success for deploying eHealth services is securing acceptance within an organisation and among patients and healthcare professionals through training, involvement of all stakeholders, focus on quality, step-by-step approach, optimization vs. maximization.

This presentation will focus primarily on eHealth and telemedicine applications as a tool to support health(care), on how the end user needs to get involved and be gained for the use of technology, and how ultimately eHealth can and will become a consumer good. Also, the importance of mobile applications will be discussed and how these can leverage a more widespread adoption of eHealth technologies. Attention will also be given to the role that the International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth and the Med-e-Tel forum play in involving and creating awareness among healthcare professionals and all other stakeholders.

Frederic Lievens

Frederic Lievens has a background in applied economics, management, and marketing from KU Leuven, Belgium.

He is now part of a family business in Belgium with over 40 years of experience and activity in the medical/healthcare industry, mainly working with US companies as a distributor for EMEA.

As a result of this business/distribution activity, he also developed, some 15 years ago, a working relationship as European coordinator for Medtrade, an American homecare conference and expo, produced by Nielsen Business Media and the American Association for Homecare. He became acquainted with several telemedicine applications and solutions in the late 1990s.

Frederic was involved in the start up of Med-e-Tel, the International eHealth, Telemedicine and Health ICT Forum (an annual international conference in Luxembourg) and is still active as international coordinator for this event.

He is a member of the International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth (ISfTeH), offering administrative and business development support to the association.

Frederic serves on the steering committee of a Belgian project which aims to support technological innovation in the homecare sector (home automation, assistive technology, telecare, telehealth) and which is now leading into the creation of a regional competence centre for assistive and home health technology.

The Healthcare Revolution - Introducing a new way to deliver Health Services

New technologies have the potential to change the way health care is delivered, enabling clinicians to provide health care to patients in remote locations. A trial of Cisco HealthPresence^™ was set up within the emergency department at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, focusing on patients with non-life threatening illness and injury. The aim was to assess primary care type consultations.

Cisco HealthPresence^™ represents a collaborative effort between the Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG) - the global strategic consulting arm of Cisco - and the Scottish Centre for Telehealth (SCT). HealthPresence provides a "virtual clinic" experience for patients, combining Cisco TelePresence with medical equipment (thermometer, blood pressure, pulse oximetry, pulse rate, telephonic stethoscope, ENT scope and general examination camera) to create an environment similar to seeing a health professional face to face.

Corinne Marsolier

Corinne Marsolier has over 17 years of Information Technology experience at Cisco. She is currently director of healthcare solutions in Europe for the Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG). Cisco's IBSG is a group of industry experts that act as a trusted business/technology advisor to business and government leaders around the world to help them become more effective through changed business processes and intelligent technology deployment.

In her IBSG role, she heads the European healthcare innovation practice and chairs the Cisco Connected Health Think Tank - a small group of international healthcare experts that debate on strategic healthcare challenges.

Earlier in her career at Cisco, she led the European 'E-business Compliant Network' practice that helps executive customers align their strategy to their infrastructure investment.

Prior to Cisco, she managed technical projects in the networking department at Hewlett Packard, Palo Alto, California. Corinne holds a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering (French Engineering School SUPELEC) and a BS in Economics (Sorbonne, Paris).

Moving towards a personal telehealth ecosystem

The Continua Health Alliance completed the first version of its interoperability Design Guidelines in January 2009. In June 2009 these guidelines were made available to the public. These are two important milestones towards the establishment of a personal telehealth ecosystem. These guidelines address the technical barrier for a personal telehealth ecosystem: interoperability amongst multivendor systems. In this paper we elaborate on the impact that Continua has on the development of the personal telehealth domain.

Johan Muskens

Currently, Johan is a scientist at Philips Research Europe in the area of healthcare systems architecture. From a technology perspective, he supports Philips businesses in medium-to-long term growth opportunities. In scope are applications and services for remote patient management and personal and consumer healthcare. In this context, he has been participating in the Continua Health Alliance Technical WG. As a chair of the end-to-end architecture sub-team, he has been focusing on the impact of new use cases on the overarching and longer-term architectural aspects of the Continua interoperability framework. In parallel to these activities Johan works on projects searching for new personal disease management concepts.

Previously, Johan Muskens worked as a scientist in the area of component based middleware for high volume embedded devices that support robust and reliable operation, runtime upgrading and extension and component trading contributing to Philips corporate research programs, external research projects with European partners and standardization efforts in MPEG (Multi Media Middleware). Before his work at Philips Research, Johan worked as a scientist at Eindhoven University of Technology on the topics of predictable assembly of components and software architecture analysis.

Johan Muskens is a M.Sc. in Computing Science from the Eindhoven University of Technology. He lives in Eindhoven, The Netherlands and his hobbies include sailing, skiing and driving a motorbike.

The Medical Information System MedISys
A Tool for Medical Intelligence

Erik will give an overview of the fully-automatic Medical Information System MedISys, which is part of the Europe Media Monitor (EMM) family of applications. MedISys monitors online news in up to 50 languages, detects trends for a wide variety of public health-related categories, and issues automatic warnings. The main users are national and international public health institutions, but the publicly accessible website http://medusa.jrc.it/ also attracts about 1 000 users per day.

Erik van der Goot

Erik is one of the original developers of MediSys/EMM and started work on open source monitoring early in 2002. He has developed many of the EMM components, is responsible for the overall system design and is still actively developing software. He currently leads a team of 20 developers and researchers working on open source text information mining and analysis. His original background is in Mechanical Engineering, he holds an MSc in Computer Science and has been developing software since 1978. Erik is Dutch and has worked in the Netherlands, the UK and for the last 14 years at the JRC in Italy.