3C: Mission and Programme

Continuity of healthcare through all life spheres of patients is a key element of recent European agendas. The next challenge for healthcare is to enable improved information management and better communication among health professionals, e.g. physicians, pharmacists, nurses etc. in hospitals, private practices, pharmacies and also in community and homecare environments.

Successful eHealth services are nowadays transforming the traditional paper-based workflows by e.g. e-booking, e-prescriptions and e-reports: These services connect systems. Yet the full transformation to eHealthcare requires to connect people. This involves a fundamental change of perspective. Thus, integrated healthcare core processes must be re-engineered by a joint deployment of organisational changes and suitable eHealth services.

The objective of the conference is not only to raise awareness for the role and value of eHealth in supporting and enabling the transformation of healthcare services. eHealth is not a set of products, tools or application but a range of responses to the need to improve and transform healthcare services. There is therefore a clear need for health professionals to be significantly involved in the debate on eHealth and its implementation.

The conference explores the concrete issues on "3C" (Continuity, Collaboration, Communication) and their influence on the eHealth infostructure (e.g. dissemination and customisation of clinical pathways, clinical datasets, reference terminologies vs. value sets, patient summaries). The parallel sessions address the lessons learned and the opportunities arising from success stories on the 3C.