What is e-health?

What it is

E-health is the use of digital information and digital communication to support or improve health and healthcare. The e stands for electronic. You will also see it written as eHealth, and another word for the same thing is digital care (in Dutch: digitale zorg).

A few examples:

• an app that helps you improve your fitness;
• an online appointment with your GP;
• video calling with your care professional;
• home monitoring: you measure something at home, and your care professional keeps an eye on it from a distance;
• online contact with peers, people in the same situation;
• an online space where an informal carer can say what the wishes are for someone’s care.

Prevention is included too, for example with an online tool that you use to keep an eye on your health.

In social work it is often called social technology: digital tools that social workers use in their work. The difference is that social technology helps people organise their own lives, while care technology supports health and care. So an online place where people with debts get help is social technology, and an online treatment in mental health care (in Dutch: ggz) is care technology.

On this site we say digital tool: anything that works on a phone, tablet or computer and helps people move forward. It can also be something to talk about together.

Why it matters

Clients in social work can benefit from it. With online help, people sometimes take a more active part than in a face-to-face conversation, and they may feel more that they choose when and how they get help. On an online platform for people with debts, you can start anonymously. That can make it easier to ask for help, because people then feel less ashamed.

As a care professional, you can use a digital tool at every stage of your support:

• Getting to know each other. A first conversation by video, if travelling is difficult.
• Planning together. Writing down goals together, so you can look back at them later.
• Between two appointments. An exercise or a diary your client can carry on with on their own.
• Looking back. Seeing together what has changed, and what is still needed.

Not everyone takes part online

In the Netherlands, about 1 in 6 people aged 16 to 75 lack basic digital skills. You can read who they mostly are, how to ask about it and where to refer people in What is digital inclusion?.

Does your client want to get better at using a computer and the internet? They can do that online at Oefenen.nl (a Dutch practice website), with exercises in language, maths, and computers and the internet. It is listed in our overview of tools made by others.

Points to watch

• Do not assume the benefits are proven. E-health has advantages and disadvantages, and these are not always scientifically proven.
• Combine e-health with real contact with a care professional. If someone does not want to or cannot use digital tools, a phone call or a face-to-face appointment also works.
• Agree what you will do if the technology fails. Becoming dependent on technology is one of the risks of digital care. In that case you could phone, for example.
• Check whether an app is a medical device. Does an app help with a diagnosis or treatment? Then it may fall under the rules for medical devices, and the maker must make sure the app is safe. Step counters and other apps for sport or fun are not covered by these rules.
• Check whether health data will go into the app. If so, extra privacy rules apply. The AVG (the Dutch name for the GDPR) only allows the use of this data in certain cases, for example when it is needed to give someone care or support. Read The AVG (GDPR) in care and support.

Find out more

• Choosing a digital tool for your client: which questions to ask before you choose.
• Introducing a digital tool in your team: how to start using it with your whole team.
• Self-direction and digital tools
• Examples from E-powerment are Moodnu, an app in which you keep track every day of how you feel, and Breathe, a breathing exercise to help you calm down.
• The Tool finder asks three short questions and shows the tools that fit your answers. Or see all tools.