Transatlantic Observatory for Meeting Global Health Policy Challenges through ICT-Enabled Solutions

The overall goal of the ARGOS eHealth Pilot Project was to contribute to establishing a “Transatlantic Observatory for Meeting Global Health Policy Challenges through ICT-Enabled Solutions” in order to develop and promote “Common Methods for Responding to Global eHealth Challenges in the EU and the US”. EU and US care about the global challenges because

1. citizens travel and migrate globally and there is a wish to foster good healthcare everywhere;
2. the EU and US wish to refine their products to better penetrate global markets;
3. experiences and lessons learned globally are useful in Europe and the US.

The Observatory will promote mutual understanding and learning among EU and US policy researchers and policy makers on the following general challenges with global dimension:

1. Improving health and well-being of citizens through accelerating eHealth strategy development and through supporting large scale eHealth infrastructure implementations;
2. Supporting R&D in eHealth to promote the benefits from the pursuit of consistent strategies.

In the ARGOS eHealth project, the following specific target areas have been addressed:

• Interoperability in eHealth and certification of Electronic Health Record systems (EHRs);
• Definition of a common, consistent approach and identification of indicators and tools for measuring the adoption, usage and benefits of eHealth;
• Modelling and simulation of human physiology and diseases with a focus on the Virtual Physiological Human (VPH) and the use of such solutions to support the diagnosis and treatment of rare diseases.

During the project an additional target area has been introduced: Strategies for the development of a skilled health IT workforce. It has now become a high priority challenge. There is an increasing demand for human resources specialised in eHealth from major eHealth developments aimed at supporting more effective healthcare services in many countries. However, there are challenges to ensuring that the eHealth informatics staff involved in the production and operation of such eHealth systems are ‘fit to practice’ professionals. There are currently different levels of understanding, qualification, quantification and definition of the existing and projected workforce requirements across Europe and in the US.

Key outputs for each of the topics are:

• a comparative analysis of current US and EU approaches;
• workshops in the US and the EU involving the different stakeholder groups;
• interim reports and publications (Policy Briefs: one per target area, three separate brochures) documenting the subprojects’ findings and recommendations (in web- and printed version);
• the “ARGOS project finale” global conference.

All of the above will target different types of stakeholders: policymakers and opinion formers, industry and users. Results will be translated into recommendations in order to support coordinated actions.
Following workshops have taken place during the second reporting period:

• First Workshop
  Barcelona (Spain), 15 March 2010
• US Workshop Virtual Physiological Human/Rare Diseases
  Washington (US), 12 November 2010
• US Workshop Interoperability/Certification & Benchmarking/Benefits
  Washington (US), 12 November 2010
  
• Final Conference
  Budapest (Hungary), 11 May 2011

The ARGOS results (including the Policy Briefs) have been published in an IOS book ISBN 978-1-60750-809-0 “Transatlantic Cooperation surrounding Health Related Information and Communication Technology”.

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Download the project fact sheet.