The Med-e-Tel 2009 opening session includes welcome addresses and keynote presentations by:

• Mars Di Bartolomeo, Minister of Health and Social Security, Luxembourg
• Gérard Comyn, Acting Director, Directorate H: ICT Addressing Societal Challenges, Head of Unit H1: ICT for Health, DG Information Society and Media, European Commission
• Marco Obiso, Advisor, ICT Applications and Cybersecurity Division, International Telecommunication Union
• Michael Nerlich, President, International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth
• Claudia Bartz, Coordinator, International Classification for Nursing Practice, International Council of Nurses
• Martin Denz, President, European Health Telematics Association (EHTEL)
• Yunkap Kwankam, Executive Director, International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth (presenting on behalf of the Rockefeller Foundation)
• Valery Stolyar, Secretary, Russian Telemedicine Association
• Rudy Vansnick, President, Internet Society Belgium, Vice-chair, ISOC European Chapters Coordinating Council

During the rest of the three-day program, a variety of topics and thematic sessions allow participants to attend those presentations and workshops that matter most to their daily activities and interests. Topics include:

• A workshop on "Deploying eEHIC services for borderless care in Europe" organized by the NETC@RDS project. The workshop will address policy and legal aspects, potential market dimension and commercial features of the services, and effectiveness of the proposed ICT solution in view of the interoperability of the eEHIC (electronic European Health Insurance Card) as forthcoming challenge for borderless care in Europe.
• "Citizens Services for Borderless Healthcare in the European Union: Practical Solutions", a workshop by TEN4Health. TEN4Health focuses on access of citizens to healthcare in participating Member States' hospitals, based on a secure web service and its integration into developing European ehealth infrastructure networks.
• "Tele-enabled Health Care - The Voice from the Field" presented in cooperation with the European Health Telematics Association (EHTEL) Task Force on Sustainable Telemedicine & Chronic Disease Management.
• An overview of "International Telemedicine & eHealth Initiatives and Developments" by members of the International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth (ISfTeH), focusing on the current state of telemedicine and ehealth use and deployment in countries such as Austria, Bulgaria, France, Georgia, Italy, Russia, South Africa, UK, Ukraine.
• A session on "Telenursing", a growing application, offering possibilities to reduce the use of expensive healthcare services, to reduce hospital admissions or length of stay, to perform regular check-ups on patients with chronic conditions, to spread limited resources over a large population, and to increase access to nurse education.
• Sessions on "eHealth for Developing Countries and Low Resource Settings", showing ICT's contributions to healthcare delivery and capacity building in the developing world.
• A special training session on "How to Implement eHealth Solutions?" presented by the expert group on Question 14 "Telecommunications for eHealth" within the International Telecommunication Union. The training will look at strategic planning issues for the development and implementation of ehealth services.
• A session on "Pan Asian Collaboration for Evidence-Based eHealth Adoption and Application", presented by the PANACeA initiative which aims to generate evidence in the field of ehealth.
• Various sessions on Chronic Disease Management, Home Care Solutions, Telecardiology, eHealth Informatics, eLearning, eHealth in Support of Routine Medical Practice, Mobile Health, Ethical Issues, eHealth in Support of Mental Health, Image Transfer.
• A regional (BeLux) hospital administrator seminar organized in cooperation with the Luxembourg CRP-Santé (Public Research Centre for Health) about "Priorities, benefits and budgets for health IT in the 21st century".
• Several sessions focusing on "Extreme Environmental Conditions and eHealth" presented in cooperation with the Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy. The sessions focus on the very current topic of the rapid degradation of our natural environment and recent evidence of climate change which has brought new interest in monitoring interactions between humans and the environment.

Overall, Med-e-Tel offers great networking opportunities. It is the perfect forum to share experiences and knowledge, a chance to gain new insights and to establish new contacts and partnerships. Med-e-Tel also offers the opportunity to see and evaluate actual products, technologies and services and to find out how they can be beneficial for you, your organization, or your health system.

For further information and registration, please visit:
http://www.medetel.eu

Related news articles:

• Med-e-Tel's Profile

About Med-e-Tel
Med-e-Tel focuses on ehealth and telemedicine applications and a wide range of other medical ICT applications and on the convergence of information and communication technology with medical applications, which lead to higher quality of care, cost reductions, workflow efficiency, and widespread availability of healthcare services.

The "Med" in Med-e-Tel stands for healthcare services (institutional and home based care, prevention and education) and for medical products and equipment (medical imaging equipment, monitoring devices, electronic health records, etc.).
The "e" stands for the electronic and IT industry and services (hard- & software, internet, e-mail, etc.).
The "Tel" stands for telecommunications (whether it is POTS, ISDN, wireless, satellite, videoconferencing, VoIP, or other).

For further information, please visit www.medetel.eu.