Improving quality of life through eHealth - the patient perspective.

Patients have moved away from being passive recipients of care. They require access to their own health data, shared decision making and control over their care pathways. eHealth offers the tools to meet these requirements and to support both patients and care providers. However, opinions diverge in how far a patient-provider partnership should be supported or full consumer autonomy be provided and there is still not enough evidence on how to design and implement effective eHealth solutions that create patient benefits. In this keynote paper different perspectives on the patient empowerment process, outcome measurement and eHealth development will be discussed as well as ongoing developments in the field of e-citizen services be presented.