Project
SPEX contribution to eTEN Objectives
SPEX contributes to the achievement of the goals indicated in the eTEN Workprogramme under the eHealth priority, as it intends to market-validate a new system able to “improve the access and quality and cost-efficiency of healthcare, particularly to peripheral regions”.
In the eTEN Workprogramme it is stated that it “aims at reducing disparities between the levels of development of the various regions and pays special attention to the least favoured regions”. SPEX clearly contributes to the achievement of this aim, by locating Points of Care in the peripheral and least favoured regions. These PoC, through their links with Centres of Excellence, will be able to deliver quality care to the local population.
Action Line 2 (eHealth) states that “The primary objectives focus on health and public health information networks, extending the advances in telemedicine to the healthcare sector”. This is exactly what SPEX does: it builds health information and delivery network which are made possible by advances in telemedicine.
The eTEN programme “...as a key instrument of the eEurope 2005 Action Plan, supports the establishment of operational services of common interest based on electronic data transmission networks. [...] The main focus of eTEN in 2003 will be the practical realisation of eEurope general interest services objectives addressing a broad set of applications and generic services in the area of, (among others, eHealth and eHealthcare) advanced mobile services and trust and confidence services. SPEX perfectly contributes to the achievement of the Programme’s objective by market-validating general interest services, in the eHealth sector, based on an electronic data transmission network. These services support an innovative model of healthcare delivery based on electronic data transmission networks that enables citizens to reap the full benefits of modern healthcare systems in a more efficient and cost effective way.
Moreover, the “eTEN programme will play an important role in both linking national, regional, and local services and extending their deployment across boundaries.” This is one of SPEX’s main goals, as it links services located at national, regional and local level (different health care structures) and deploys the same model across Europe (in three Member States during the project and in as many others during the Initial Market Deployment Phase).
SPEX is in line with the strategic objectives from the eTEN Programme:
- It “strengthen(s) economic and social cohesion” among the Member States by making a step in the right direction towards removing internal barriers in one of the very few sectors where European integration has made practically no inroads up to now: healthcare. SPEX by promoting entrepreneurial spirit and by applying business models borrowed from the commercial marketplace to the healthcare sector stimulate the private healthcare sector to branch out of the national boundaries and to provide quality care across the boundaries. This is bound to strengthen economic and social cohesion in the Unions.
- It “reduce(s) disparities between the levels of development of the regions” because, by spreading clinical knowledge and access to quality care, SPEX bridges one of the fundamental gaps between central and peripheral regions of the EU and between urban and peripheral areas.
SPEX meets the Operational Objectives defined for eTEN in 2003, because it strongly “stimulate(s) and support the deployment of services in support of eEurope”. This aspect is addressed in more details in the following sextion “Contribution to EC Policies”. Furthermore, SPEX comply with the eTEN mandatory requirement of “be(ing) Trans-European in scope”. In fact the project addresses needs which are common to a majority of Member States and it does it with an eye to the adoption of common standards and to future interoperability between independent regional and national networks. In addition, all the services envisaged in the project, during the Market Validation phase, are delivered through narrow-band communications for cost considerations but they would greatly benefit from broadband networks as it is recommended by the eTEN Programme.
