From the scientific perspective, the general aim of the applied research unit eHealth is the study of methods and models for the design, implementation and evaluation of prototypic applications and ICT-based innovative services supporting the management of data, information and knowledge in healthcare domain. The activities of applied research will be carried out in strong collaboration with local, national and international research institutions and will focus on two main themes:

• Study of eHealth applications and services supporting a model of care centered on citizens and patients (Patient-centered eHealth-PCeH).
• Study of eHealth applications and systems for healthcare operators (Clinical eHealth-CleH) supporting the quality of the care process.

From the innovation perspective (along the dimensions of services toward PA and of technology transfer for companies), the mission of the eHealth Unit is to conduct research in collaboration with FBK research units (internal “interface”) and promote innovation in the eHealth domain toward local and national Public Administrations (Health Ministry, Health departments, hospitals, ecc) and companies active in the healthcare market. In this context, an eHealth Laboratory (SETLab) has been established in 2005 as a single point of contact for healthcare organizations, research institutions, and companies within the local community interested in utilizing the expertise, services and resources of FBK in the field of eHealth. 
The eHealth Unit is a multidisciplinary research group carrying out research in eHealth area within a conceptual framework that comprises four basic activities: model formulation, developing innovative applications, validating these applications in laboratory and on-the-field, studying the effects of these applications in several healthcare settings. Friedman states that “a complete informatics laboratory should have people who are knowledgeable and who are working at all of the levels”. This framework will be implemented by methods and techniques from interaction design, a user-centered approach to design that emphasizes the importance of involving final users throughout the whole process of design of the product or system within an iterative design-evaluation process.

The competences required by the group are both a solid theoretical background and software development skill in the following fields:

• medical knowledge representation and use of ontologies and knowledge basis for semantically interoperable knowledge-based systems;
• standards for representing and exchanging clinical information;
• software architectures of web-based distributed systems ensuring the development of reliable software solutions complaint with the requirements of privacy and security;
• user requirement collection and usability testing of software systems;
• user-centered design of graphic user interfaces, with particular regards to interfaces aimed to the medical community and citizens.

The applied research and innovation activity conducted at the eHealth Unit has the potential to impact on scientific community and on the range of individual, institutional and societal stakeholders involved with different roles and perspectives in the eHealth arena.