Edinburgh Napier University

  Gaston Crommenlaan 1 PO box: 101 9050 Gent Belgium www.5g-ppp.eu 5G and e-Health 1 Socioeconomic drivers of e-Health in Horizon 2020 Although socioeconomically the sector addressed by this white paper is the health sector, the detailed analysis will be provided for the e-Health and m-Health sub-areas as they are more directly relevant for the identification of requirements on the future infrastructures and the development of new business models and value chains as well as any related discussion pertaining to policy and regulation. Due to the lack of crisp definitions the white paper will also cover areas such as telematics, telemedicine, robotics, tele-health, which are frequently used synonymously. As e-health and m-health are currently the most popular terms and in many ways do cover the telecommunication aspects of other overlapping areas for the reason of simplicity we will refer to e-Health and m-Health in this paper. However, if needed, we will refer to the specific areas as mentioned above. The e-Health sector is identified as a priority in the European Digital Agenda and subsequently in many national digital agendas for the following main reasons:  The current average spending in the healthcare sector is around 10% of GDP in Europe.  The rise in healthcare costs as percentage of GDP continues to outperform the average economic growth (GDP).  Digitalization and virtualization of care have been considered a major driver towards the transition of healthcare from a hospital based, specialist driven system towards a distributed, patient centred care model with the point of care shifting to the periphery. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), e-health is the transfer of health resources and health care by electronic means. It encompasses three main areas:  The delivery of health information, for health professionals and health consumers, through the Internet and telecommunications.  Using the power of IT and e-commerce to improve public health services, e.g. through the education and training of health workers.  The use of e-commerce and e-business practices in health systems management.