Second Intensive Balkan Telemedicine and eHealth Seminar

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Second Intensive Balkan Telemedicine and
e-Health Seminar October 21-23, 2007 Tirana,
Albania
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We think its our responsibility to help rebuild
medical systems in war-stricken areas, such as
Kosova. We think that it is our responsibility
to change the imbalance in healthcare of the
poorest of the poor to provide better health care
to people living under the most crushing poverty
imaginable which we have seen in remote areas of
Peru, Columbia, and Brazil.
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The first and most important part of making the
right diagnosis is to understand the history and
contributing factors of the seemingly intractable
situations. Analyzing the situations, one may
find that governments usually do not have the
necessary finances available to offer and pay for
even the most basic healthcare. This is only
the face validity of reality, though.
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We believe that tools in Telemedicine could
provide a low-cost alternative to the governments
of the nations in the developing world or in
countries which are undergoing transitions. Govern
ments, of course, must take responsibility for
the health of their people by setting rational,
stable, and rights-based policies that guarantee
health care for even the most poor and vulnerable
citizens.
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It has been our experience thus far that local
and regional governments have been extremely
interested in working with us on Telemedicine
projects in order to improve the healthcare
delivery in the remote areas and difficult
conditions.   In addition to the interest of the
local governments, we believe that it is only
with large scale and ongoing international
assistance that governments will be able to
address the right to health in a sustained way.

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We anticipate the IVEH to become one of the first
steps towards a worldwide responsibility to
fulfill the right to health care.    The deep
roots of health inequality assure us that, until
systemic change takes place, the misery will
continue. Without money to train human resources,
build real health infrastructure, procure
medicines and diagnostics-successful health
projects will remain pilots and large scale
initiatives to improve health will seem naïve.
  However, our recent experiences in the remote
areas of the Amazon have helped us diagnose the
sickness we find globally and it is only if we
understand the pathology that we can imagine a
healthier future.
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Empowering women through advanced technologies
used in e-Health and Telemedicine New IVEH
Initiative
Mateja de Leonni Stanonik, MD, PhD October 23,
2007 Tirana, Albania
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The International Virtual e-Hospitals (IVEH)
mission states that IVEH is committed to using
advanced technologies and telemedicine to foster
womens empowerment and gender equality in the
emerging democratic governance of developing
countries.
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Following the success of IVEHs Telemedicine
Program in the Balkans, we propose to initiate a
new program in the area in cooperation with
UNIFEM inviting women from the region to
participate in a four-week academic program in
the United States followed by a three-month
internship at the International Virtual
e-Hospital in partnership with the regional
governmental offices. The internship will be
focused on providing and creating virtual
education opportunities and establishing
leadership amongst women using existing
telemedicine network and advanced technologies.

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The IVEH programs are designed to encourage and
empower women to take an active role in their own
healthcare. IVEH will provide basic education
on womens healthcare topics, education on
available healthcare services, provide training
and education in leadership in regards to
mechanisms of the twin pandemics of violence
against women and HIV/AIDS incidence and
prevalence as well as provide information and
referrals to healthcare and social service
providers in the regions.
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The program will also help to generate women
community leaders, professionals who will
subsequently work in partnership with
governmental policy makers and service providers
to develop/advocate for protocols related to
violence against women and HIV and AIDS services
which respond to their needs. By networking we
will build on existing womens efforts,
leadership and agency to facilitate the economic
and political rights and to pilot interventions
aimed at specific actions to address womens
education. Through the virtual education
lectures, IVEH programs will feature
internationally known speakers, who share their
expertise on womens health, socio-political
topics as well as e-Health.
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The networking is vital in women empowering
process as it provide the windows for
facilitating access to data and information about
the ongoing activities within healthcare and
social services. Hence, IVEH will partner with
UNIFEM in project aimed at reducing the twin
pandemics of violence against women and HIV/AIDS.
The project which will include innovative
piloting of services for learning and scaling up
womens empowerment will contribute to broader
efforts to build evidence of concrete and proven
strategies which reduce the vulnerability of
women and girls in the Balkan region to both
violence and HIV and AIDS, and contribute to the
advocacy efforts of the Global Coalition on
Women.  
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• Looking for other partnerships in the area of
  health and healthcare education (raising
  awareness) on different topics in womens health
• UNFPA emergency obstetric/gynecologic issues
• EUROPA DONNA European consortium on breast
  cancer earlier detection and different treatment
  options for women in Eastern and Southeastern
  Europe.

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