As Covid-19 swept across the globe, one factor became blindlingly obvious: disease does not recognise borders. The EU is implementing digital initiatives in all member states to ensure high quality cross-border healthcare for consenting EU citizens, wherever they become ill or injured.
ADVERTISEMENTThe worldwide Covid-19 pandemic highlighted many aspects of world health, but perhaps the most obvious and most important is that diseases have no borders.
So it’s more important than ever to share the health data of EU patients to healthcare professionals, wherever they are in Europe. This growing need for cross-border healthcare in recent years has consequently been a trigger in the adoption of digital health tools.
Currently, two cross-border e-health services are already operational in several European countries. The e-prescription and dispensation allows European citizens to get their medicines from a pharmacy in another Member State.
Patient Summary services provides essential background medical information to ensure healthcare for patients coming from another EU country.
Luxembourg has been running the Patient Summary service for two years now. Once the patient agrees to share their health data, doctors can access the necessary medical information for diagnosis and treatment.
At European level the full potential of digital health will be reached in the next few years with the implementation of the European Health Data Space.
To find out more about Patient Summary services Euronews spoke with Hugo Van Haastert in Brussels, he is an expert of digital health, working for the DG Health, and you can watch the full interview with him in the video above.