The event ‘eHealth and Equity in the Global Health Communities’ is an initiative of the eHealth Unit, DG INFSO, European Commission and will take place in Brussels, on  15 December at European Commission premises.

The potential of eHealth to help strengthen health systems and to improve the safety, quality and efficiency of care was recognized by the World Health Assembly in its resolution on eHealth in 2005. In addition, eHealth should improve health equity as a consequence of the ease of access to information and health services.

The workshop will seek answers to questions such as:

• What types of disparities does this ease of access minimize or exacerbate?

• How are health systems and their governance influenced by these eHealth solutions, policies and practices?

• What evidence is there to strengthen activities and programmes that support local, regional, national and global health communities?

We particularly seek experiences and lessons learnt in low-resource settings including contributors from developing countries.

This workshop will act as a means of dissemination of the key findings to high-level decision-makers; as a promoter of stronger commitment on eHealth interoperability and its wider application at global level and as a preparatory forum for selecting issues to present at the forthcoming World Health Assembly.

Provided they address the theme of the workshop, speakers are free to propose their own topics. An indicative (but not exhaustive) list is given below.

• Interoperability as a means of achieving equity in healthcare

• The role of the professionals involved in telemedicine and remote care in reducing inequities

• Using eHealth to widen access to information: does this promote equity in low resource areas?

• Managing Electronic Health Records for equity in care

• eHealth systems for “care at home”: bypassing age and distance discrimination

• Cross-border eHealth services: can they enhance equity in care?

Deadlines to remember:

• Summary (1 page max) & 7 .ppt slides: 18 November 2011

• Speaker confirmation: 25 November 2011

• Finalised presentations: 2 December 2011

• Publication of event proceedings: end of January 2012

Registration:

To register for this event please create an ePractice account at http://www.epractice.eu/en/user/register if you are not a current member.
Subsequently, kindly login and once you are in this page click the yellow button that reads 'Participate in this event' to activate your registration. ePractice members can simply login and click on the same page as described above.

Submission of summaries/presentation slides:

To be considered for a speaker placement kindly submit a summary of one page and four presentation slides of your intended presentation to events@eurodyn.com.

Regarding your summary, please download and complete the 'Proposal form' that may be found in the ‘Presentation and documents’ section below.
Final presentations should not exceed 7 presentation slides and should be concise and factual. The main point of your presentation is to briefly inform about the project/initiative and encourage participation, questions and overall discussion.

Networking:

This workshop is all about networking. A few selected speakers will set the scene with a 15 minute presentation and the rest of the programme will be dedicated to roundtable discussions and networking purposes.

Contact:

Please, direct all queries for the above events@eurodyn.com. The event coordinator will assist you promptly.