Study rationale

Fostering the development and implementation of national eHealth policies and strategies has been a key goal of the European Union (EU) eHealth Action Plan of 2004 . The European Commission has awarded the eHealth strategies study to a group of partners, led by empirica. The study team has analysed progress of the European Union Member States with regard to the following eHealth action plan priorities:

  • National eHealth policies, strategies and governance measures
  • Deployment of eHealth applications (EHR-like systems/patient summaries, ePrescription services and telehealth applications)
  • Infrastructure implementation aspects (Electronic identifiers, eCards and standards)
  • Institutional structures and legal issues

Final report

A synthesis of the findings, good practice cases and resulting recommendations are published in the summary report:

European countries on their journey towards national eHealth infrastructures - evidence on progress and recommendations for cooperative actions

An official, printed version of this final report will be published by the EC in the spring of 2011.

Country database

More than 30 individual reports detailing policy actions and deployment of eHealth applications in Member States and other European countries are available.
A host of experts as well as reviewers from the i2010 Subgroup on eHealth contributed their intimate knowledge of the eHealth situation in their respective countries and validated the content of the country reports. This comprehensive collection of country information constitutes a unique resource and important database of up to date evidence on eHealth progress across Europe, which updates and complements the results of the earlier eHealth ERA study of 2007