EU-Russia cross-border innovation and business cooperation (short)
Essential events, feelings and experiences from InnoBus - Innovation and Business Cooperation (ENPI) project 2011 - 2014. The project was co-funded by the European Union, the Russian Federation.
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Despite being separated by a big body of water and quite a few language barriers, there are few shared struggles in healthcare between the US and Europe. An Economist article highlighting the rise of telemedicine in the European Union calls attention to the issue of reimbursement and implementation in its member countries.
As the article puts it:
Member states do not agree on whether to pay for care that is administered remotely; some, including Germany, rarely pay for it at all.
Its almost comforting that despite the potential of telemedicine to assist different aspects of healthcare, figuring out the balance between doctors and insurers is an issue beyond the US as well. It also calls attention to the need to figure out the best fit for it. Some doctors wrestle with the implications of telemedicine.The article interviewed Norwegian doctor, Nils Kolstrup, who said some physicians are worried that it may lessen their authority by making it easier for patients to seek advice elsewhere. He also said patients may feel like theyre getting an inferior service.
Interestingly, the article doesnt get into the context of when telemedicine is used apart from highlighting the Cleveland Clinics work with several African countries to examine tumors to cope with the shortage of oncologists in places like Rwanda.
It seems like implementation is a stumbling block in places like China, which is investing billions in reforming its healthcare system with telemedicine as the focus, as the article points out.
If you have a chaotic system and add technology, you get a chaotic system with technology, says Peteris Zilgalvis, a health official at the European Commission. Telemedicine may even increase costs if it is added to old routines rather than replacing them. There is little evidence of its cost-effectiveness, says Marc Lange of the European Health Telematics Association, because studies simply lump it on top of standard care.
As with a lot of Economist articles, the comments section offers insights almost as interesting as the article. One reader expresses concern that telemedicine will focus physicians attention on the parts visible on the computer screen. If you cant see the whole body of someone you are missing something. The same reader also expresses concern that not all screens and cameras do the same color processing and wonders whether this could affect a diagnosis. Another reader calls attention to a success story using telemedicine for eye exams at the Aravind Eye Care Center in India.
Here is the original post:
European Union grapples with telemedicine challenges, too
LONDON (TCA) This week in the Wall Street Journal, President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan commented on the next chapter of Kazakh-EU relations. Already, half of Kazakhstans trade with the world goes into the European Union mostly facilitated by its status as the third largest non-OPEC oil producer in the world. Yet in the midst of Eurozone crisis, economic recession and EU instability is Kazakhstan making the right choice? The answer is yes. The whole of Central Asia is slowly been subjected to the modern equivalent of The Great Game which saw the British and Russian Empires pitted against each other for supremacy over Central Asia in the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century. Today Moscow and Beijing both have their eyes on the same target and Kazakhstan must turn to the West.
For a post communist nation, the European Union represents a vast trading opportunity that would propel Kazakh economic influence to the forefront of the oil trading world. This year we saw how the effects of sanctions on Russia damaged Kazakhstan greatly and may have finally taught Astana that absolute economic dependency on Moscow was a long term danger. To the east, Kazakhstan has signed contracts with China worth some $30 billion and growing. If Chinese influence starts to grow in the region, it is likely Moscow could become more aggressive leaving Kazakhstan stuck in the middle of the feud. The EU can offer much more.
If Kazakhstan can escape the Russian economic stranglehold over its resources and manage to sign a successful Partnership Cooperation Agreement with Brussels, the effects of Sino-Russian competition in the future could shield the country. In economic terms, the EU can offer Kazakhstan an escape route away from the damaging shockwaves of Moscows foreign policy. Negotiations to join the World Trade Organisation are going well for Astana that will allow Kazakhstans resources to be exported out of the Kremlins Cold War-esque sphere of influence.
Kazakhstans developing closeness with the European Union opens up another door. As the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) ravages land beyond the Caspian Sea and actively recruits from Central Asia, security is becoming ever the more important. If ISIL could wield influence in Kazakhstan they would link up with the Eastern Chinese region of Xinjiang and the Uyghur militant groups who are already fighting in Iraq for the Islamic State. Yet what are the chances of Russia and China assisting Kazakhstan and the rest of the region if Islamic State militants bring war to the region? An active Russian and Chinese presence would bolster, enhance and solidify their exploitive influence in the region that would further place Kazakhstan at the centre of a diplomatic and economic struggle between Moscow and Beijing. To counter this, the continuation of the tested multi vector policy of various Central Asian countries with a well vested and serious relationship with the EU could draw out the intensity and virility of any Sino-Russian confrontation in the region.
For further information:
The Times of Central Asia
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The European Union best trading partner for Kazakhstan
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