e-Health policy and deployment activities in Europe

e-Health has become a major topic in the European Union (EU) Commission due to the assumption that it improves the quality and effectiveness of health services and, at the same time, promotes information and communications technologies in this emerging high-technology area. In 2004, the EU Commission adopted the first e-health Action Plan, which sets targets for member states in the adoption of telematics applications. This article aims at explaining the variance in the application of e-health tools across 24 EU member states.

The study includes the implementation of 12 e-health policies as of early 2007. Each policy was coded on a binary scale distinguishing between implementation and nonimplementation. The summing up of all binary values created an additive index. We used several multiple linear regression models to estimate the impact of socio-economic, political and healthcare related variables on the scope of implementation.

The scope of implementation mostly depends on political factors, whereas economic and health-related variables scarcely account for cross-country variance. Only the scope and importance of the domestic information and communication technology market have a significant effect on the scope of implementation. In contrast, political variables constitute most of the variance in the implementation scope. The strength of left parties in government has a significant effect: an increase of left parties in government increases the total amount of e-health measures implemented.

Governments that included e-health applications in policy documents rather early have adopted more telematics applications.