Patient Empowerment through eHealth Portal in Bosnia and Herzegovina

This paper covers two on-going interconnected eHealth projects in Bosnia and Herzegovina: eHealth Strategy for Republic of Srpska (a political entity in BiH), and eHealth Portal and eLearning in Continuing Medical Education for BiH, as a part of the project called Improving Governance and Interethnic Cooperation in BiH through eHealth (eHIGICo BiH). eHealth Strategy defines roadmap for introduction of eHealth in Republic of Srpska, based on 4 strategic pillars (management, foundation projects, implementation and information integration projects). As an implementation step of the strategy, eHIGICo BiH concentrates on introduction of BiH eHealth portal as a tool for "patient empowerment" where citizens are encouraged to take an active part in their own health management. Growing in popularity and application this concept presumes that empowered healthcare providers support patient control of their healthcare. On the other side, eHIGICo BiH concentrates on healthcare professionals through provision of all relevant information in one place and/ or links for the same. It also offers Continuing Medical Education (CME) online, where health care professionals will have access to online courses, seminars and teachings with automated credit system. This project is supported by and in cooperation with Ministry of Health and Social Welfare of Republic of Srpska and Ministry of Health of Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.