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Roundup: EU Commissioner urges Lithuania to step up e-services in medicine

Xinhua, October 9, 2015 Adjust font size:

Lithuania should step up its efforts in medical care by implementing digital solutions, said Andrus Ansip, European Commission Vice President for the Digital Single Market here on Thursday.

"In some areas Lithuania looks really well, however, there is still work to do, to compare with other EU member states; I am talking about e-healthcare, online exchanges of medical records and e-prescriptions," Ansip said at a press conference held during his visit here.

By comparison, in Sweden all prescriptions are distributed digitally, while in Greece e-prescriptions account for 90 percent of all prescriptions, despite the country's financial troubles, he noted.

According to EU data, e-prescriptions in Lithuania accounted for a mere 0.45 percent of all prescriptions in 2013.

"Based on my experience, it is possible to create the system, it is very comfortable for residents," Ansip noted.

Lithuania started to implement an e-prescriptions system back in 2012. However, its completion has been postponed until 2016. The system is funded both by the EU and the Lithuanian budget.

Lithuania's Prime Minister Butkevicius agreed Lithuania needed to address the problems mentioned by the commissioner, but said the EU should remove obstacles to a fair and competitive e-commerce environment between member states.

Developments in the EU digital single market, promotion of innovations and job creation in the EU member states was discussed during the commissioner's meeting with Butkevicius, the government said in a statement.

Despite the slow transition to digital heathcare, Lithuania boasts considerable progress in the field of telecommunications, Butkevicius noted.

"Over 70 percent of the population with Internet access use e-banking, more than 60 percent are active on social networks, 94 percent of the population reads news on the Internet," the head of government was quoted as saying in the statement.

"Despite the advantages of electronic services, due efforts need to be taken to ensure information security, develop the EU legal framework for the fight against information attacks and hostile propaganda," he added. Endit