The president of Estonia, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, is participating in eHealth Week 2015, taking place 11-13 May in Riga, Latvia.
Ilves is joined by Dr. Guntis Belēvičs, minister for health of Latvia; Dr. Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis, European Union Commissioner for Health and Food Safety; and H. Stephen Lieber, president and CEO of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS).
Andriukaitis highlighted the release of the Digital Single Market and said, "We must seize the digital single market opportunities to fulfill a vision for healthcare in the 21st century -- a vision of a single, universally accessible, sustainable, and high quality e-health single market for the benefit of all European citizens and healthcare professionals."
Also, Lieber presented a number of awards on stage, including this year's HIMSS electronic medical record adoption model (EMRAM) Stage 6 and 7 award recipients who are attempting to become paperless and use IT in delivering better healthcare.
Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre in the Netherlands has become the third hospital in Europe to be given the Stage 7 award. Three Turkish hospitals -- Bolu İzzet Baysal Fizik Tedavi ve Rehabilitasyon E.A.H., İzmir Dr. Suat Seren Göğüs Hastalıkları ve Cerrahisi E.A.H., and İzmir Katip Çelebi Üniversitesi Atatürk E.A.H. -- the Italian Istituto di Candiolo, and two Spanish hospitals -- Hospital Universitario Central de Asturias and Hospital Universitario Son Espases -- join 28 other healthcare organizations as Stage 6 hospitals in Europe.
Morten Elbæk, CEO and founder of sundhed.dk, received the HIMSS Europe Leadership Award.
During eHealth Week, delegates will benefit from several sessions, including the "Joint Plenary Green Paper on mHealth -- Conclusions and Actions," which will provide an overview of the results of the public consultation in the context of the commission's green paper on mobile health. Other sessions will address current e-health challenges, such as "Privacy and Data Protection in Healthcare."
