Establishing an evidence base for e-health: the proof is in the pudding.

1 to endorse e-health as a way to strengthen health systems. In defining e-health as " the cost-effective and secure use of information and communication technologies in support of health and health-related fields " , the resolution offered a definition that was comprehensive and generic, yet specific enough for researchers wishing to evaluate the impact of e-health to know what to evaluate. Specifically, the resolution urged Member States to " mobilize multisectoral collaboration for determining evidence-based e-health standards and norms, to evaluate e-health activities , and to share the knowledge of cost-effective models, thus ensuring quality, safety and ethical standards and respect for the principles of confidentiality of information, privacy, equity and equality ". This theme issue has three main objectives , as explained in a call for papers 2 published in June 2011: • to provide an authoritative, critical and independent overview of current knowledge about appropriate, trans-disciplinary methods and applications in e-health; • to include contributors from developing countries, who seldom have the opportunity to publish in international journals; • to strengthen the commitment of high-level decision-makers to address e-health interoperability issues and seek to widened the application of e-health. Researchers, academicians and practitioners from all over the world responded to the call for papers with more than 90 submissions, 14 of which are published here. Van Gemert-Pijnen et al. 's editorial 3 makes a worthy point: e-health development must be holistic, evidence-based and people-centred; it must take into account how people live within their own environments and respond to stakehold-ers' needs. In the research section that follows, Wootton et al. 4 examine the characteristics of long-running telemedicine networks and conclude that " improved collaboration between networks could help attenuate the lack of resources […] and improve sustainability ". In a study of the health-related uses of information and communication technologies (ICT) in low-and middle-income countries, Lewis et al. 5 find three leading purposes: to extend geographic access to health care, to improve data management, and to facilitate communication between patients and physicians outside the physician's office. The authors highlight the need for more sustainable sources of funding, greater support for the adoption of new technologies, and better ways to evaluate impact. A review by Piette et al. 6 of the published literature on e-health systems of three types – systems facilitating clinical practice, institutional systems and systems facilitating care at a distance – shows that e-health can …