Portugal – a growing information society

Portugal was the location where the European Union first decided that e-health should be a priority for a future eEurope. It was in Feira, in 2000, when the EU agreed to make e-health a priority for the 21st century and told member states to formulate plans for national e-health networks.

Proposals for a Portuguese switch to e-health were first unveiled by the Portuguese Parliament in its 2003 National Action Plan for Information Society. The main objective is to use the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) to place the citizen at the center of the health system, while increasing the quality of the services provided, increasing the efficiency of the system and reducing costs.

Portuguese e-health policy is divided into three action lines – health information networks, on-line health services and patient smartcards. In this country focus, E-Health Europe, together with the Ministério da Saúde (Portuguese Ministry of Health) examines how the three action lines have been progressing since 2003.

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Portugal’s use of the internet as a health information resource The aim of this strand of the Portugese e-health policy is to improve communication between patients and doctors. To achieve this the Portuguese government has installed high-speed internet connections in all state hospitals. New electronic identity card enables patients to look after their records The Portuguese electronic identity card replaces five current cards: personal identity card, taxpayer’s card, social security card, voter’s card and health system card. Health Information networks and further e-health work The Portuguese National Data Centre, has begun aggregating information located in several distributed databases at local, regional and national levels. This is initially dealing with the National Patient Identification and information on temporary incapacity for work for use by the Social Security Ministry.