The global financial crisis as well as the growing demographic crisis that is affecting Europe could be the catalyst for European governments to finally embrace electronic healthcare reforms, according to Esko Aho, former Prime Minister of Finland and leading thinker on innovation.   Mr Aho, who was delivering the closing keynote presentation at the World of Health IT Conference and Exhibition in Copenhagen today, said that he believed the substantial cost savings to be recouped from investment in electronic health records could provide the stimulus that is needed for European governments and healthcare bodies to start investing seriously in eHealth.   “We have a great opportunity to improve the productivity of healthcare sectors across  Europe, but we need systemic reforms, as no single element will solve the problem of how to improve the way we share health information across local, regional and national boundaries. The problem is not the technology, which is there, but buy-in at the government level. Currently, we underestimate the risks related to the present system, even though people are dying through lack of information, and we overestimate the risks attached to reform. This is what needs to change.”   Mr Aho also went on to say that more needed to be done to foster innovation in healthcare in  Europe. “We need some basic changes to our strategy here in  Europe. We need more effort on the demand side, rather than the supply side. This means creating markets and creating tools for public and private healthcare bodies to take on more risks associated with innovation. I’m optimistic  Europe is able to do much more innovation, but the structure is not in place yet to support this on a greater level.”

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