[Advancing therapy-oriented telemedicine- Does Europe have an answer?]

Despite a large number of existing telemedical applications as well as numerous issues in the current implementations, the desire for intensified integration of IT solutions for the health sector is unanimous amongst all actors involved (patients, practitioners, software and hardware developers, insurers, services, etc.). This reflects the state of digital systems in use in medicine today which have yet to arrive in the 21st century and operate well below the technologically possible. Telemedica/ methods remain mainly associated to flagship projects with often limited mid- or long termimpact on patient care practicesror scientific research. Supraregional or national standards are far from being defined. The register EUSTAR under patronage of the ESH is designed to fill gaps in the current IT solutions by utilization of the innovative software system SCITIM 0 to enable broad application of telemedicine and thereby provide evidence for its scientific and economical feasibility. For this the utilization of interventional decentralised telemonitoring (idTM 0 } is suitable as it preserves clear and direct patient practitioner bonds and communication. The fundamental measure of idTM 0 - to judge the quality of the te/emedica/ application by the medical quality of the consequent actions -is rarely considered by the majority of smaller projects where other tetemedical applications and methods are established.