E-health applications and services for patient empowerment: directions for best practices in The Netherlands.

Objective: E-health may enable the empowerment process for patients, particularly the chronically ill. However, e-health is not always designed with the requirements of patient empowerment in mind. Drawing on evidence-based e-health studies, we propose directions for best practices to develop e-health that promotes patient empowerment.

The electronic locum record for general practitioners: outcome of an evaluation study in the Netherlands.

Background: A locum practitioner is an out-of-hours general practitioner who needs access to the electronic health record of visiting patients. The electronic locum record is a summary of the electronic health record available to the locum practitioner and includes the most significant health problems, the most recent records of the patient's visits to the practice, current medication data and information on allergies and intolerances. The locum practitioner returns a locum medical note to the electronic health record at the general practitioner with his or her diagnosis, treatment or referral of the visiting patient.

Innovating eHealth in the Netherlands.

Innovation is essential to improve accessibility, effectiveness and efficiency of healthcare delivery. eHealth promises these improvements provided that it complies to essential requirements with respect to quality and patient safety. eHealth must be implemented thoughtfully to yield full benefit to the patient.