Global eHealth Strategies Symposium
2nd edition
at Med-e-Tel 2012
Luxembourg, 18-20 April 2012

Aims

The Global eHealth Strategies symposium at Med-e-Tel aims to provide an intercultural and multidisciplinary framework in order to promote policy dialogue on how eHealth can address health issues and challenges in developing countries, as well as analyse transferability of evidence, identify barriers and determine factors for a useful deployment of eHealth. It will do so by bringing together care providers, government representatives, funding agencies, industry leaders from the North and the South in an open and collaborative atmosphere.

Information and communication technologies (ICT) are potentially powerful instruments to strengthen and transform health systems, with innovations ranging from electronic health records to patient monitoring systems. These technologies also show great promise in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) whose health systems face severe financial, infrastructural, technical and human resource constraints. As an example: the potential of mHealth (mobile health) as a highly practical application of ICT in healthcare for resource-constrained environments, becomes obvious when considering the following facts:

• At least 80% of the world's population lives in areas with mobile phone coverage, providing a technology platform for mHealth applications.
• By 2012, half of all individuals in remote areas of the world will have mobile phones.

In addition, the strategic use of ICT is seen as a tool for achieving the internationally agreed development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

European Commission supports Global eHealth Strategies symposium

The European Commission (DG Information Society and Media) is a partner of the Global eHealth Strategies symposium.

The European Union has actually established a policy framework in Global Health, which for the first time brings together internal and external policies around the objective of improving the EU collective contribution to global health. This Communication aims to contribute to improved governance at global and national levels. In this context, the EU will work to enhance its current work on health care data collection with relevant national and international bodies such as WHO, the OECD and the Health Metrics Network, to improve health information systems and the collection of comparable data and statistics to allow benchmarking and inform global, European and national policies. The EU will also continue to promote the use of ICT, including eHealth. The Communication also provides an opportunity to better link EU efforts in advancing health knowledge with global needs and, in turn, to better link this knowledge and evidence with the overall dialogues on health policies.

In the context of the Joint Africa-EU Strategy (JAES) and its Partnership on Science, Information Society and Space, eHealth has also been identified as a priority domain and a political commitment. As far as implementation is concerned, the objective is to promote coordination among all public-private stakeholders, in order to avoid fragmentation of initiatives, dilution of resources and therefore maximising impact on the ground.

Funding opportunity for presenters from developing countries

The European Commission (DG Information Society and Media) awards grants to 3 abstracts from developing countries* submitted to the Med-e-Tel 2012 conference. In order to promote participation of developing countries and to promote eHealth research and implementation, the Directorate-General Information Society and Media of the European Commission will fund expenses for 3 speakers to present their projects or initiatives at the Med-e-Tel conference during the second edition of the Global eHealth Strategies symposium.
Conditions and terms:
1. All abstracts submitted by 8 January 2012 will be evaluated by the Med-e-Tel Scientific Committee. Three submissions from developing countries will be selected.
2. EC will participate as observer in the selection process.
3. Selection criteria:

• Relevance to overall Med-e-Tel topics
• Specific relevance to Global eHealth Strategies symposium
• Originality - new approach, results, information presented
• Technical quality - aims and background, methodology, results and outcomes
• Presentation (language) - clear, succint
• Interest - alignment with attendees' expectations, value to others
• The spread of awardees over different continents or areas and the level of development from their originating country will also be taken into account in the final selection.

4. The award decision will be communicated by 13 January 2012 latest.
5. The grant consists of travel, accommodation and registration fee for one person per presentation.
6. EC and Med-e-Tel will contact the winners to manage the logistic tasks related to travel, accommodation and registration. Visa application and/or any other administrative requirements shall be managed by the speakers themselves according to current rules.
7. The presentations shall be included in the 2nd Global eHealth Strategies Symposium at Med-e-Tel 2012.
* For eligible countries, see list of "Developing regions" under http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49regin.htm#developed

About Med-e-Tel

Med-e-Tel is an event of the International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth (ISfTeH), a global network of telemedicine and eHealth organizations and stakeholders that currently already spans members in over 65 countries around the world. The 10th anniversary edition of Med-e-Tel is scheduled for 18-20 April 2012 in Luxembourg. Besides wide attention for European telemedicine and eHealth agendas, the Med-e-Tel event also covers to a large extent developments and initiatives around the world, including those in developing countries and low resource settings.

Submission

If you would like to submit a presentation proposal for the Global eHealth Strategies symposium or for the Med-e-Tel conference program in general, please use the online abstract submission form.

Deadline for submissions: 8 January 2012

Registration

Click here to register for the Med-e-Tel conference (incl. access to the Global eHealth Strategies symposium).

Venue

Luxexpo
10 circuit de la Foire Internationale
1347 Luxembourg
Luxembourg
Click here for a local area map.

Hotels

For hotel information and reservation form, click here.

Travel

For discounted airtravel with Air France/KLM, click here.

Questions, suggestions and expressions of interest to participate are welcome at: