Country Profile: Greece

The Greek healthcare system is organized by the National Health Service, a mandatory social insurance system, and a voluntary private health insurance system, all of which manage health centers, health care units, and hospitals, thereby providing access to healthcare services to the public. While healthcare was organized on a national level in the past, Greece established its Regional System of Health and Welfare Administration in 2001, and is currently in the process of reducing the number of administrative regions.

ICT use and eHealth strategy

The use of ICT is common among Greek health practitioners. However, given the relatively low number of practices with Internet access, especially broadband Internet access, the use of eHealth solutions in Greece is somewhat below the EU-27 average. Also, the use of ICT in Greek healthcare is, for the most part, limited to administrative tasks and the storage of patient data. The transmission of patient data or the use of Decision Support Systems is rare.

The National Information Society Program (2000-2006) has lead to significant advances in the area of ICT use for healthcare-related purposes: Greece is currently in the process of finalizing the implementation of Health Information Networks in each Regional Health System.

While healthcare is managed by the NHS as well as the mandatory social security and private health insurance system, health policy underlies the decisions of the Greek Ministry of Health and Social Solidarity, which launched the national eHealth Roadmap for Greece in 2006. The Roadmap is divided into three major phases, which, in turn, contain a number of action points to advance the use of eHealth implementations in the Greek healthcare landscape:

• The first phase, spanning from 2006 to 2007, focused on standardization and the strengthening of necessary fundamental communication infrastructures as well as the implementation of strategic pilot projects.
• The second phase, which is projected until 2012, involves large-scale pilots on a regional level
• The third phase, projected from 2012 to 2015, will involve national large-scale pilots.

Each phase aims at advancing three health care issues:

• Information distribution, for telemedicine applications, as well as health promotion and the enhancement of technology management systems
• Health networking services based on secure data networks
• Services for welfare / mental health institutions to aid the elderly and/or people with special needs

Legal framework

Currently, no regulations exist regarding telemedical applications, the use of electronic prescriptions, or patient summaries. However, there are initiatives to regulate the latter to achieve compliance with respective EU regulations.

Nevertheless, there are laws regulating the processing of personal data on a more general level, as well as laws regulating rights of hospital patients. In fact, Greece’s legal regulation of personal data protection is in full compliance with the respective European directive: the collection / processing of sensitive data is therefore generally prohibited without the patient’s consent.