It is my great pleasure to introduce this special issue of LNSV comprising the sci- tific publications presented at ehealth 2009: The second Congress on Electronic Healthcare for the 21st Century, which took place in Istanbul, Turkey during September 23–25, 2009. Building on the first ehealth 2008 congress held in London, UK, the key topic of ehealth 2009 was investigating a realistic potential of the Internet in providing e- dence-based healthcare information and education to patients and global users. The proudly defined aim of ehealth 2009 –– bringing together the three medical sectors: academia, industry and global healthcare institutions –– was met and made the c- gress a truly unique event. The formal and informal discussions among the conference participants led to numerous stimuli for new collaborations. We accepted 26 full and 10 short technical presentations by speakers from all over the world, having received over 80 submissions. In addition to two keynotes, the commercial angle was provided by invited industrial speakers representing a wide range of healthcare IT companies including Corinne Marsolier of Cisco, Glenn Kenneth Bruun (CSAM Health), Luis Falcón (Thymbra) and Johan Muskens (Philips Research Europe), as well as international healthcare organizations such as Med-e-Tel represented by the international coordinator Frederic Lievens.

It is my great pleasure to introduce this special issue of LNSV comprising the sci- tific publications presented at ehealth 2009: The second Congress on Electronic Healthcare for the 21st Century, which took place in Istanbul, Turkey during September 23–25, 2009. Building on the first ehealth 2008 congress held in London, UK, the key topic of ehealth 2009 was investigating a realistic potential of the Internet in providing e- dence-based healthcare information and education to patients and global users. The proudly defined aim of ehealth 2009 –– bringing together the three medical sectors: academia, industry and global healthcare institutions –– was met and made the c- gress a truly unique event. The formal and informal discussions among the conference participants led to numerous stimuli for new collaborations. We accepted 26 full and 10 short technical presentations by speakers from all over the world, having received over 80 submissions. In addition to two keynotes, the commercial angle was provided by invited industrial speakers representing a wide range of healthcare IT companies including Corinne Marsolier of Cisco, Glenn Kenneth Bruun (CSAM Health), Luis Falcón (Thymbra) and Johan Muskens (Philips Research Europe), as well as international healthcare organizations such as Med-e-Tel represented by the international coordinator Frederic Lievens.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the Third International Conference, eHealth 2010, held in Casablanca, Morocco, in December 2010. The 30 revised full papers presented along with 12 papers from 2 collocated workshops were carefully reviewed and selected from 70 submissions in total and cover a wide range of topics including web intelligence, privacy, trust and security, ontologies and knowledge management, eLearning and education, Web 2.0 and online communications of practice, and performance monitoring and evaluation frameworks for healthcare.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 4th International Conference, eHealth 2011, held in Málaga, Spain, in November 2011. The 20 revised full papers presented along with 8 short papers were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions in total and cover a wide range of topics including social media analysis, knowledge integration and EPR, personalisation and patient support systems, early warning systems and mobile monitoring, games and learning, security, privacy and prevention, online support for professionals and patients, agents in eHealth, online communities of practice, eHealth solutions, social media surveillance, and communication and data integration.

It is my great pleasure to introduce this special issue of LNSV comprising the sci- tific publications presented at ehealth 2009: The second Congress on Electronic Healthcare for the 21st Century, which took place in Istanbul, Turkey during September 23–25, 2009. Building on the first ehealth 2008 congress held in London, UK, the key topic of ehealth 2009 was investigating a realistic potential of the Internet in providing e- dence-based healthcare information and education to patients and global users. The proudly defined aim of ehealth 2009 –– bringing together the three medical sectors: academia, industry and global healthcare institutions –– was met and made the c- gress a truly unique event. The formal and informal discussions among the conference participants led to numerous stimuli for new collaborations. We accepted 26 full and 10 short technical presentations by speakers from all over the world, having received over 80 submissions. In addition to two keynotes, the commercial angle was provided by invited industrial speakers representing a wide range of healthcare IT companies including Corinne Marsolier of Cisco, Glenn Kenneth Bruun (CSAM Health), Luis Falcón (Thymbra) and Johan Muskens (Philips Research Europe), as well as international healthcare organizations such as Med-e-Tel represented by the international coordinator Frederic Lievens.

It is my great pleasure to introduce this special issue of LNSV comprising the sci- tific publications presented at ehealth 2009: The second Congress on Electronic Healthcare for the 21st Century, which took place in Istanbul, Turkey during September 23–25, 2009. Building on the first ehealth 2008 congress held in London, UK, the key topic of ehealth 2009 was investigating a realistic potential of the Internet in providing e- dence-based healthcare information and education to patients and global users. The proudly defined aim of ehealth 2009 –– bringing together the three medical sectors: academia, industry and global healthcare institutions –– was met and made the c- gress a truly unique event. The formal and informal discussions among the conference participants led to numerous stimuli for new collaborations. We accepted 26 full and 10 short technical presentations by speakers from all over the world, having received over 80 submissions. In addition to two keynotes, the commercial angle was provided by invited industrial speakers representing a wide range of healthcare IT companies including Corinne Marsolier of Cisco, Glenn Kenneth Bruun (CSAM Health), Luis Falcón (Thymbra) and Johan Muskens (Philips Research Europe), as well as international healthcare organizations such as Med-e-Tel represented by the international coordinator Frederic Lievens.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the Third International Conference, eHealth 2010, held in Casablanca, Morocco, in December 2010. The 30 revised full papers presented along with 12 papers from 2 collocated workshops were carefully reviewed and selected from 70 submissions in total and cover a wide range of topics including web intelligence, privacy, trust and security, ontologies and knowledge management, eLearning and education, Web 2.0 and online communications of practice, and performance monitoring and evaluation frameworks for healthcare.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 4th International Conference, eHealth 2011, held in Málaga, Spain, in November 2011. The 20 revised full papers presented along with 8 short papers were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions in total and cover a wide range of topics including social media analysis, knowledge integration and EPR, personalisation and patient support systems, early warning systems and mobile monitoring, games and learning, security, privacy and prevention, online support for professionals and patients, agents in eHealth, online communities of practice, eHealth solutions, social media surveillance, and communication and data integration.