Cross Border Healthcare & Patient Mobility: Public Consultation on Scotland's Transposition and Implementation of Directive 2011/24 EU on the Application of Patients' Rights in Cross-border Healthcare.

Article 14 - e-Health

18.1 Article 14 is intended to support and facilitate co-operation and the exchange of information among Member States working within a voluntary network on the e-Health agenda, on the transmission of data in cross-border care. Article 14 sets out that the objectives of the network will be to:

• work towards interoperability of e-Health systems and services;
• draw up guidelines on, a non exhaustive list of data to be included in patient summary records which can be shared across borders;
• identify effective methods for enabling the use of this information for public health and research; and
• develop common identification and authentication measures to facilitate cross-border healthcare.

18.2 The Commission has established a committee comprised of the Member States for the set up and functioning of the network. All Member States, including the UK, were represented at the first meeting of the voluntary network on 8 may 2012 in Copenhagen. However, measures adopted will not interfere with Member States' competence in implementing e-Health systems or harmonising national laws and are not mandatory.

18.3 In terms of Directive implementation, no implementing legislation is required in this area. Whatever results from this work is not a result of the legal obligation to transpose Directive requirements, but of separate decisions taken by the UK to participate in future work in this area (which will go through its own development and assessment process).