Baltic Conference on E-Health takes place on September 26, 2008 at the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce under the patronage of Ulla Schmidt, Germany’s minister for health.
 
In nearly all countries of the Baltic health care systems have to face enormous challenges. On the one hand demographic change leads to increasing costs, on the other hand opportunities to raise income are limited for health care providers. And finally new quality demands come up because patients ask for transparency and participation. IT solution can help to deal with these challenges. This is not only true for the often discussed electronic health card, but also for tele-medicine applications, which register patient’s data and support therapies without any need for face to face contacts at the point of care. This could increase both the quality of care and the quality of patient’s life. Integrating health care service of different suppliers in one single clinical information system could save double diagnosis and reduce costs.
 
In all these applications of e-health systems many innovations were generated in the last years within the Baltic Sea region and are now in use especially in Scandinavia. 
 
This is the background for the second Baltic Conference on E-Health on September 26, 2008 in Hamburg, organised by the Baltic Sea Forum, IBM, and the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce in cooperation with the US Commercial Service. Decision makers from companies, hospitals, ministries, and other health care institutions in Germany, Scandinavia, Poland, Russia, and the Baltic countries meet in Hamburg to foster cooperation and to deepen exchange of knowledge and experiences.
 
The conference will focus on the following topics: :
- Disease Management
- Best practice and case studies from the entire Baltic Sea region
- Process optimization, raising efficiency, and optimized electronic communication for hospitals and other health care providers
 
In addition the European Union’s approach towards the harmonization of e-health care systems within Europe will be discussed. The conference is topped off by an accessory exhibition of leading IT companies presenting the state or the art technologies in e-health.
 
Several partners supporting this conference such as Koch-Metchnikov-Forum and the health care initiative Schleswig-Holstein.
 
For further information about the programme and the speakers of the conference see www.baltic-conference-on-ehealth.com