The Norwegian Centre for Telemedicine (NST) is an international R&D Centre for telemedicine and eHealth and Norway’s national centre of expertise for telemedicine in specialist healthcare since 1993. In 2002 the centre got the status of World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Telemedicine. NST is a department of the University Hospital of North Norway and owned by the Regional Health Authority of North Norway.

NST ’s vision is ‘Excellent health services available to all, regardless of time and place’.

NST has a multidisciplinary approach to telemedicine and eHealth, its staff existing of healthcare professionals, technologists, social scientists, educators, economists and juridical experts. Its research, project and activity portfolio covers the interests of primary and specialist healthcare, patients and patient organisations and industry. The portfolio is financed by private and public funding. The main areas of activity are:

• New telemedicine technologies and services
• The clinical quality of telemedicine solutions
• Data security and legal issues
• Using the Internet to promote health
• Chronic disease self management
• Telemedicine in the home
• Factors that encourage and that hamper the use of telemedicine
• Organizational changes resulting from telemedicine
• Issues in health economics associated with telemedicine
• Evaluation and documentation of the use of telemedicine

NST believes that international cooperation is essential in the further development and use of telemedicine and eHealth. It therefore organises the annual international Tromsø Telemedicine & eHealth Conference (TTeC) and participates in several international projects like the Interreg III projects ’eHomeHealthcare@NorthCallote’, ‘Baltic eHealth’ and ‘Sustainable Rural Healthcare Networks’, the Leonardo daVinci project Medical Peace Work and this IST FP-6 project COGKNOW. NST is lead partner of the EU-project ‘European eHealth Consumer Trends Survey’ under the Public Health Program (DG SANCO).

Key Personnel:

• Halgeir Holthe;