Semi-Automatic Systems for Exchanging Health Information: Looking for a New Information System at Fixed E-Healthcare Points for Citizens in Greece

Introduction

It is widely known that people need various tools and instruments to do their job in a more efficient way and organize their daily lives more efficiently. In particular, about the tools for measuring, even long before the advent of the Gospel, our sophisticated ancient ancestors were using the abacus. Much later, in the 17^th century, the French scientist Pascal invented the mechanical calculator. Ιn the 19^th century, the English mathematician Charles Babbage designed the “analytical engine”, the precursor of PCs. In the 20^th century, perfected by later scientists, Babbage’s “analytical engine” evolved gradually, from design to implementation and application, into the current personal computer (Gates et al., 1996). Hence, the PC came to life to serve us and nowadays exists in workplaces and homes because its usage becomes more and more necessary. We need the PC indeed, for many different purposes or personal and professional targets but finally, in order to satisfy many our wishes. However, we have come a long way from a simple electronic computer (PC) to large computer systems (mainframes) and to computer networks. Moreover, from the first Intel microprocessor in 1971, through Pentium and Celeron versions, we reached within a few decades the sophisticated Intel Core processor. Also, we learned the law of Moore as the first researcher in 1965 who wrote the remark “The CPU capacity seems to be doubled every 18-24 months” (Tassopoulos, 2005). Thus, the sales of computers with faster CPUs and many more advantages have increased all around the world.

Communications technology has also evolved alongside computers. PCs took advantage of the evolution of communications technology. Νowadays the Unified Information and Communication Technologies [ICT] (Apostolakis et al., 2008) change the way we work, we study, we search and we educate our children (Tassopoulos, 2005). Furthermore, they affect the way we make our dealings with other individuals, and with the civil services of the public sector and local authorities. Generally speaking, they change the way we communicate within our social context and the way we lead our daily lives. To this end, the broad supply of the provided facilities at a pace, which few people expected, has indeed played a significant role.

The need for fast improvements in PC’s world led our footsteps from the Ethernet (Vasilakopoulos et al., 1990) to the Intranet (Gates et al., 1996; Tassopoulos, 2005). Then we saw the Arpanet (Gates et al., 1996) and finally the Internet (Gates et al., 1996). Today, the most popular Internet application is browsing the World Wide Web (Berners-Lee et al., 1999; Gates et al., 1996). In the USA, some people compare the interconnection of computers into an interactive network around the world, with the national network of interstate highways. That is the reason this new network was named the” Information Avenue” (Gates et al., 1996). “Without the enormous increase of the power of PCs, of software, of fiber optics, of high-speed electronic transporters and satellites, information relating to the economy and health would never instantly reach our monitors. These monitors are connected to this global communication and information system” (Kennedy, 1994). Moreover, history has taken its course on a planet where gradually more and more people continue networking and getting more and more interconnected.