A review of Romanian Space Agency's activity in the field of telemedicine and e-health

The Romanian Space Agency (ROSA) is the coordinator of Romania's national and international space activities. As a government institution, ROSA has concluded international agreements on behalf of the Romanian Government, including agreements with ESA and NASA. Between NASA and the Government of Romania, represented by ROSA, started in May 2000 a cooperation in the areas of Telemedicine and Telehealth, Agricultural research and Technology. This article will review ROSA's activity in the field of telemedicine and space applications in medicine highlighting the spin-offs including institutional outcome consisting in objectives of the National Strategy in this field. In 2001, thru the AEROSPATIAL National Research Programme was financed the first Telemedicine public pilot project in Romania, followed by several other projects and spin-offs, including telemedicine tests in remote areas as the Danube-Delta, which represented milestones in setting up the National Strategy in telemedicine and medical space applications, disaster management, communications, etc. Today, we find these objectives in the National Health Strategy 2014-2020 of the Ministry of Health ("development of e-medicine and higher accessibility to healthcare thru telemedicine") and the National Strategy concerning Digital Agenda 2014-2020 for Romania of the Ministry of Communications ("e-medicine/support of ITC in health"), approved by the Romanian Government.