EU*US eHealth Works to Improve Global Workforce Development

For the past several decades, healthcare organizations and providers in the United States, the European Union and other countries around the globe, have advanced the digital transformation of healthcare to help increase quality, safety and efciency. Health information technology/eHealth enables healthcare workers and providers the opportunity to maximize their care delivery, ultimately resulting in better outcomes for patients, consumers and society.

The core of any healthcare system is its workforce. Therefore, healthcare systems require a robust supply of highly skilled professionals who are profcient in eHealth/health IT to use, operate and maintain the digital services, which are an increasingly essential part of their infrastructure. Some of these professionals are frontfacing care providers such as doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other caregivers and need "eSkills" to achieve and sustain success in their work. Others are on the extended healthcare team, such as clinical informaticists, health information sta?, biomedical engineers and researchers, employ eHealth on a daily basis where the use of ICT (information and communications technology) is critical. Furthermore, some healthcare sta? that may not be traditionally thought of as using ICT in their work, such as pastoral care workers (clergy), environmental workers, or nutritional sta?, who are also more frequently relying on digital services and technology to manage their daily tasks.

To take on these expanded duties, all workers within the healthcare environment must be trained in eHealth, preferably before they even receive their frst job. Therefore, the development and advancement of a healthcare workforce equipped with eHealth skills is vital to the present and future state of healthcare. This eHealth enabled workforce will assure that systems keep working functionally, that clinical workflows are incorporated into technology, and that healthcare is delivered in a manner that is safe, secure and qualityinfused.

This paper will discuss the ways in which the EU*US eHealth Project, in cooperation with its Consortium members and a large stakeholder community, will work to measure, inform, educate and advance development of a skilled eHealth workforce throughout the European Union, United States and globally, with the goal of creating a legacy of digitally empowered health care professionals now and in the future.