Research & Technology Development: The Netherlands
The government policy in this area is to stimulate R&D to facilitate and implement ICT. A lot of money is given to ICT-projects but there is no structural funding for ICT implementation and because of this many projects cease after the pilot stage. This is a deliberate policy of the government to stimulate institutions to take over the funding of projects with good results. The introduction of a Care Card, which provides access to the electronic patient record, is probably the most important of these initiatives. The following highlights other major R&D initiatives, experiments and pilots:
Gerontechnology project I by KITTZ (Institute for Quality and Applied Home Care Innovation) from 1995 to 1998. This project was initiated by the Ministries of Economic Affairs, Welfare, Health and Cultural Affairs, and Housing, Regional Development and the Environment. On the basis of this project the ministries aimed to set processes in motion in order to bridge the gap in the market between supply and demand for the elderly. Aim was the awareness considering the design for all approach and involving the elderly as 'critical' experienced users in the design and distribution process.
The government has signed a declaration of intent that all the websites of the ministries will be accessible for older and disabled people and must comply with the W3C guidelines. Special projects are initiated to reach this goal.
On-line information for patients about diseases and the facility to ask questions and share experiences.
Tele consulting, e.g., a general practitioner sees a skin disorder and send a digital picture from the skin disorder by internet to a dermatologist for a second opinion.
An initiative to develop a regional infrastructure for the purpose of exchanging digital X-ray images. The project involves hospitals in the Breda and Tilburg region. The project uses modern PACS systems and broadband communication facilities. This project could serve as a proving ground for a specific function with the express object of applying the results in other regions.
Tele-monitoring, e.g., by heartcomplaints the patient can make a ECG at home and sent it by telephone to a doctor for judgement.
Tele-treatment, e.g., medication aid device. The aim of this project is to develop and test an aid device to support the medication plan for the elderly and people with memory problems.
Tele-consulting, e.g., e-consult by a general practitioner.
Tele-care, e.g., supporting informal carers at home.
In the Netherlands there are a lot of initiatives concerning domotica. There is a Smart Homes Foundation and various aspects of smart homes, such as technical infrastructure, software and hardware, applications and marketing issues, as well as societal impacts are being investigated and highlighted. Furthermore, smart homes can benefit from projects related to services, for instance, home shopping and telehealth, as these services are supplied via ICTs to the home.
A problem is that there are a lot of initiatives with no continuation.