VEMH: Virtual Euro-Mediterranean Hospital for Evidence-Based Medicine in The Euro-Mediterranean Region

Telemedicine aims at equal access to medical expertise irrespective of the geographical location of the person in need. New developments in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have enabled the transmission of medical images in sufficiently high quality, which allows for a reliable diagnosis to be determined by the expert at the receiving site (Pande, Patel, Powers, D’Ancona & Karamanoukian, 2003; Lacroix et al., 2002). At the same time, however, these innovative developments in ICT over the last decade bear the risk of creating and amplifying a digital divide in the world, creating a disparity between the northern and southern Euro-Mediterranean areas (Dario et al., 2005; Graschew, Rakowsky, Roelofs & Schlag, 2003a; Graschew, Roelofs, Rakowsky & Schlag, 2004). In recent years, various institutions have started EuroMediterranean telemedicine projects (EMISPHER, www.emispher.org/; BURNET, www.burnet.org/; PARADIGMA, www.paradigmamed.org; EMPHIS, www.emphis.org/; EUMEDGEN, www.eurogene. org; ODISEAME, www.odiseame.org; EUMEDCONNECT, www.eumedconnect.net/; GALENOS, www. rrk-berlin.de/op2000/Deutsch/projekte/galenos.html), which were intended to foster a cooperation between the European EU-Member countries and the Mediterranean countries (Graschew, Roelofs, Rakowsky, & Schlag, 2002; Graschew, Roelofs, Rakowsky, & Schlag, 2003b; Rheuban & Sullivan, 2005; Wootton, Jebamani, & Dow, 2005). All these projects have demonstrated how the digital divide is only part of a more complex problem: the need for integration. Therefore, provision of the same advanced technologies to the European, Mediterranean, and Adhering countries should be the final goal for contributing to their better dialogue for integration.