ICT (Information and Communication Technology) may be powerful
source of the innovation in health care in many areas, but change of the
model of care delivery and of the relations between participants of the
health care market is the most visible trace. The access to relevant information
became a prerequisite to patient empowerment in his or her relation
with health care professionals. Nowadays, the patient is expected to
take active role in care processes and abandon the attitute of a passive
recipient of medical services.
There are also many challenges for health care professionals. Apart
from the requirement of partnership relations with patients, health care
professionals are obliged to follow evidence-based guidelines in their
practice. The quality assurance strategies became inherent element of
clinical activities.
E-health environment brings a set of tools which can support all
players active in health care domain in smooth adoption of new policies
and requirements.
The paper focuses on the issues of enhancement of access to
health-related information by patients and health care professionals,
medical information management and patient safety achieved with ehealth
technologies. A new model of health care delivery, especially
for chronic care, based on the intensive use of e-health systems is proposed.