The High-Tech Face of e-Health

This chapter focuses on the current and potential use of e-Infrastructures in the domain of eHealth. It starts by identifying a small number of specific Use Cases and then addresses how these can be optimized—or possibly revolutionized—by the use of state-of-the-art distributing computing infrastructures (DCIs). Specific topics that are addressed include “long-term” data preservation (for the duration of a patient’s life as well as (far) beyond for collective-oriented studies), federation of heterogeneous data sources, provision of redundant and highly accessible data storage and federated identity management. The work draws heavily on the author’s experience in distributed computing infrastructures to address the challenges of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, together with participation in generic e-Infrastructure projects, such as the EGEE project services and EGI. It also benefits from experience in hadron-therapy oriented projects with which CERN has synergies both as an accelerator laboratory as well as a pioneer in DCIs.