Interview of France's public policy eHealth portal webmaster #health20fr

Silber’s Blog  published the first interview of Matey Karassimeonov, webmaster of the recently-launched French government eHealth portal whose purpose is to inform interested parties about eHealth programs in France. This is the English version of the interview. Matey was trained in law and new technologies and worked previously for the French Overseas and Sports Ministries. He can be described as an internet fan since his teen years.

You are responsible for the French eHealth portal since January 2010. Please describe your activities

I have two main responsibilities, as a project manager and as an editor.  As project manager, I coordinated the definition of the  site map, our subjects, positioning, services, specifications. This was of course a team project and not a one-man activity.

As a medium, we have to be constantly looking at what's happening around us. However, as a public organization, we want to feature interesting initiatives and not just provide news. We'll be looking at our first results this fall and see what interest and expectations we have generated.

What are the portal's goals ?
 

France's public sector is striving to consolidate the development of health information systems in France. This portal's goals are to raise awareness of eHealth and to promote "ASIP Santé", the public agency piloting national efforts to exchange health data. Users of the site are most likely specialists of the subject, although it's open to all. Texts are written in easy-to-understand terms.

This screen capture shows the 3 types of information we provide.

* eHealth news in French is on the second horizontal line of headings, starting with public policy.
*The top line running form eHealth projects to regional portals is to facilitate access to public health actors.

* Information about ASIP Santé is accessible via the blue rectangle. The main purpose of the portal is to promote e-Health and not to talk about ourselves, ASIP.

The English part of the site provides translations of what we think will be of interest to an international audience.