Do the Legal Systems of Europe and its Member States Meet the Needs of eHealth

The term "eHealth" is used in this special edition of the European Journal of Biomedical Informatics to describe the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in the delivery of healthcare. It encompasses the use of a wide range of ICT applications including eHealth tools, such as Electronic Health Records; eHealth services, such as the Electronic Prescriptions; and eHealth devices, such as the remote monitoring software. The use of these tools, services and devices in the delivery of healthcare is widely acknowledged to be beneficial. They allow for accurate, timely and safe sharing of information so that patients may be better treated and supported. Core to the efficient functioning of eHealth tools, services and devices is interoperability. Achieving interoperability in eHealth involves a complex set of operations, including technical interoperability, which ensures data integrity and authenticity in sharing data between different end points; semantic interoperability, so that information may be understood by the end user regardless of the natural language or physical environment in which it is being accessed; organisational interoperability, which allows healthcare providers to share information across different internal structures and processes; and legal interoperability which allows different jurisdictions to enable secured access to and processing of patient information transferred electronically.