The Digital Agenda is one of the seven flagship initiatives of the EU’s 2020 strategy for smart,sustainable and inclusive growth. The objective is to maximize the social and economic potential of ICT, spur innovation and economic growth. It identifies seven priority areas ranging from creating a single digital market to using ICTs to face societal challenges, including eHealth.

The Digital Agenda proposes some 100 actions, of which five are directly relevant for eHealth:

• Undertake pilot actions to equip Europeans with secure online access to their medical health data by 2015
• Achieve widespread deployment of telemedicine services by 2020
• Propose a recommendation defining a minimum common set of patient data for interoperability of patient records to be accessed or  exchanged electronically across Member States by 2012
• Foster EU-wide standards, interoperability testing and certification of eHealth systems by 2015 through stakeholder dialogue
• Reinforce the Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) Joint Programme to allow older people and persons with disabilities to live independently and be active in society.

Other actions of relevance for eHealth include the revision of the data protection legal framework, measures on ICT interoperability, ensuring mutual recognition of e-identification and e-authentication across the EU...