Economic Assessment

Economic impact assessment of eHealth

One of the largest challenges facing policy-makers, industrialists, and market-makers is identifying and measuring in precise terms the added-value of expanding ICT in health care and provision. To enable this, the European Commission has initiated a Study on the Economic Impact of eHealth which develops and tests a context-adaptive method of evaluating eHealth. It focuses on three stages each application has to follow – planning & development, implementation, and routine operation. A handbook of tools to collect relevant information on costs and benefits related to these stages will be produced. It will include identified critical success factors, like the dimensions to include in the scope of the eHealth application, actors to involve, change management and training efforts. Key aspects are proven benefits for patients, professionals and payers. The framework offers a generic base to help to derive a more pragmatic method for each application.