PROJECT N° 8
GLOBAL HEALTHCARE APPLICATION PROJECT
- progress Report - april 1996 - The G7 and the Global Information Society
A special session of the G7 - the groupðof the most industrialised nations in the wold - was held in Brussels in February 1995. The Ministers of Industry and of theseven G7 countries came together to discuss the development of a global telecommunications networks and the identification of services that would be developed as part of this global infrastructure.
What made the G7 - which normally meets to discuss the world economic situation - decide to devote a special session to the Global Information Society ? The answer is clearly the exceptional importance of the revolution that is going on in this sector - a revolution involving both technology and society.
Displaying the benefits
The G7 meeting in Brussels hosted a Showcase. This demonstrated the vast range of applications already existing as well as providing an insight into emerging techonologies that will soon emerging technologies that will soon be part of everyday life. The aim of the Showcase was to let the public see how this revolution will affect all aspects of our lives - at home, at school, in offices, factories and hospitals.
Building the Global Information Society
Following this meeting, the G7 Governments have taken the decision to establish global pilot projects in a number of selected areas. In the healthcare sector, six pilot sub-projects have been identified by the G7. Their overall aim is to illustrate how the global information society can build a healthier society for us all.
Approaching the global village
The creation of a global system of data transmission - wide band integrated communications - makes it possible to send sounds, pictures and information anywhere in the world. This is making the, often imagined, "global village" a reality.
Telephones computers and televisions could soon share the same networks throughout the world and be used in a complementary way. The removal of economic and regulatory obstacles will make the services based on this infrastructure cost/effective.
The social implications are enormous, since this will affect the way people are both formed and informed, what they do at work and in their spare time. Every aspect of society will be radically altered - the appearence of our cities, the structure and content of services such as healthcare or transport, the forms of social contact. The diffusion of these new techologies at all levels of economic and social life is transforming our society into an " Information Society ".
Public acceptance is extremely important to the process of overcoming the risks and maximising the benefits. A key concern is to avoid the emergence of a two-tier society, in which only part of the population has the abilyty to exploit the benefits of the Information Society, while the other part is marginalised and disadvantaged as a result of being alienated from the information culture. Citizens, patients, healthcare professionals all need to be convinced that these new technologies will give them more control over their lives, their work and their health -not less.
The G7 Global Healthcare Application Project
Telematics technologies offer new possibilities for healthcare professionals. They allow rapid access to appropriate information and knowledge world wide. Citizens expect that the type of benefits they derive from telematics at work and in their homes, will also be applied to improving their health.
There is a long-standing and strong tradition of international co-operation in the field of healthcare. This tradition is reflected in the strengthening of wold-wide co-operation of health professionals and researchers, as well as between public health authorities.
Sub-project 1, "Towards a Global Public Health Network"
Sub-project 1 aims to assist public health authorities, particularly in their fight against infectious diseases or major health hazards. Other public health projects - within the G7 countries as well as others - have shown how sharing information can help Ministries of Health identify further actions to protect and improve the health of their citizens.
The availability of comparative data is an essential component. This enhances the efforts of individual countries by enabling them to draw on, and learn from, the experiences of others.
Sub-project 1 will investigate the feasibility of linking existing and emerging public health data telematic networks in Canada, Europe, Japan, the USA, the World Health Organisation, as well as other international health-related organizations. The main challenge is to ensure that the systems are inter-operable across the world. User friendly, fast, cost effective systems hold the key to success.
Sub-project 2, "Improving Prevention, Early Detection and Treatment of Cancer",
Sub-project 3, "Improving the Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment of Major Cardiovascular Diseases"
Sub-projects 2 and 3 are designed to help health professionals increase the efficiency of epidemiological and clinical studies. They aim to improve access to best medical practice regardless of location. Cancer and cardiovascular diseases are major causes of death, disability as well as being a source of high health costs in G7 countries. These two actions will establish some twenty multimedia databases which will enable health professionals across the world to access the best possible information and expertise. Single users and peripheral centres will be able to seek decisional support for patient management and referral from centres of excellence. Each centre of excellence will be responsible for compiling and updating information, for one or more multimedia databases, on specific aspects of the diseases.
Sub-project 4, "A 24-hour Multilingual Telemedicine Surveillance and Emergency System Around the World"
Sub-project 4 aims to establish a global teleconsultation system for health emergencies. A telematic network, linking major public and private emergency centres, as well as other relevant supporting medical institutions, around the world, will provide the basis for a 24-hour multilingual emergency teleconsultation service. This service will benefit a wide range of people including those at sea, travellers, people working in isolated places and those living in regions with less developeed healthcare services. A key aim is to link this system to the world-wide satellite-based distress communication system.
Sub-project 5 "Enabling mechanisms for global healthcare network"
Sub-project 5 deals with nomenclature, coding and standards. It aims to identify the most efficient tools and communication infrastructure for navigating and accessing the nethworks. It will also focus on linguistic aspects - such as on-line translation - and the harmonisation of security standards for patient related data exchange. Protection of personnal data is of paramount importance for society's acceptance of this types of applications.
Sub-project 6 "International harmonisation of use of data cards in healthcare"
Sub-project 6 will establish a framework for co-ordinated use of healthcards. It will ensure the harmonisation of data sets and the interoperability of applications and services by complying with relevant international standards; complementarity and synergy between data cards and telematics networks; and acceptability to society by meetings demands for privacy and security. It will develop an international emergency card to provide medical information, vital in an emergency. It will also develop a harmonised administrative data-set, and an international professional card - essential for the secure identification of healthcare professionals accessing medical records and using network services.
Implementation plan
During 1995,teams of representatives, nominated by the respective G7 countries, were established for each sub-project and the experts to make up the technical panels identified. A survey of existing collaborative activities world-wide was undertaken and contacts established with the relevant institutions in the G7 countries.
As a result of a series of meetings and discussions, the objectives of the sub-projects have been refined.
Terms of reference for a series of technical feasibility studies have been drafted. These has been launched at the beginning of 1996. They will be open to the contribution of all G7 countries and actors involved. By the end of 1996 small-scale demonstrators should be developed on the basis of which each sub-project will prepare the grounds for implementing their pilot project in 1997.