Current status and prospects for e-Cardiology & e-Health development based on materials of the European Congress on e-Cardiology & e-Health, Bern, 29-31 October, 2014

The European Congress on e-Cardiology & e-Health took place in Bern, Switzerland. There were 250 participants from 23 countries and 90 speakers presented papers. The Congress was devoted to the latest advancements in e-Cardiology, e-Health and telemedicine. Scientists and cardiologists could get acquainted with a great variety of papers and participate in discussions. Here I would like to make some general conclusions whilst avoiding detailed considerations of each paper.

Nowadays, the factual evidence available to practitioners is used in information technologies and telemedicine methodologies. Practitioners’ decision-making is limited to the goal to do no harm to patients’ health. Such statements were insufficient for the health care experts who participated in this Congress.

But it is urgently required that data obtained by physicians should allow prediction and modeling of patients’ health. Unfortunately this is not the case today. Such an approach becomes possible in cases where the relevant data on a patient is accumulated and stored automatically in the patient’s records in accordance with the applicable data protection acts. It allows modeling of his actual health state and prediction of outcomes with the use of the accumulated data. To accumulate data from birth till extreme old age is the best option. Modern technologies can provide these options nowadays, but clear standards should be laid down for this purpose. Such standards do not currently exist.

Congress Director Prof. Hugo Saner said in his report that nowadays a huge amount of the information recorded by smartphones and smart e-Health devices does not reach your doctor and data cannot be used in the proper way for decision-making in health care. Preventive cardiology and health care system experts are interested in predicting health. Therefore there is a vast field to be developed by e-Cardiology and e-Health.

I do very much hope that the Congress participants share my opinion. We look forward to learning more about new achievements in effective cardiovascular system monitoring at future Congresses.