57 One of the basic tools which, together with organizational changes and the development of new medical skills, can significantly contribute to the development and advancement of the healthcare system, improving the availability and quality of the healthcare services, as well as their higher efficiency and productivity, is a set of systems and services which is known as e-health. Ehealth encompasses a broad scope of application of information and communication technologies in the healthcare system and it is designed for all the system participants: the citizen (for receiving the right information in a customized form), the patient (e-prescription, e-referral, eidentification), healthcare workers (integrated approach to electronic patient records concerning the time and level of healthcare), and system administrators at various levels (providing organizational and operational information), as well as the healthcare system as a whole (the exchange of the information among the various entities of the healthcare system). European context Starting with the presupposition that technology development for e-health can enhance health care quality and reduce health service expanses, the European Commission has adopted a whole set of documents (action plans, recommendations, directives) for the purpose of furthering standardization and interoperability as well as certification of electronic health records and equipment. Also, a Directive aimed at establishing rules for simplifying the approach to secure and quality crossborder healthcare in the EU and ensuring patient mobility, as well as improving cooperation in the field of health care between the Member States, while recognizing the responsibility of respective Member States for determining health-related social insurance eligibility. Traditionally, the standard of investment for the EU is that 2-4% of the total health budged is allotted for digitalization of health care. The changes to health systems, the volume of work and other factors affecting their performance, make health care information system and information and communication technologies application a priority for the development of total health care systems and strategic planning in health in general. National context The process of planned informatization of the health system began in 2000 with the development of informatic support to operational processes of the Health Insurance Fund. In this phase, basic common resources (technical-technological) which lay the foundation for all further infor-