Improvement of cross-sector communication in the integrated health environment.

Patient care is a complex process with different providers located in various institutions co-operating within an integrated health environment. In spite of technical improvements in medical care, patient information is usually exchanged by paper. Digital and timely communication between regional care providers can improve the exchange of information. Different systems and missing data standards are challenges that have to be met. ByMedConnect, a project sponsored by the Bavarian State Ministry of the Environment and Public Health, develops and demonstrates a communication solution based on the EN 13606 standard. In a first step the dataset, which will be exchanged by the care providers, is defined. ByMedConnect develops the dataset in cooperation with practicing clinicians and converts it via modeling tools into archetypes that provide the base for reliable cross-sector communication. Existing heterogeneous systems are integrated via a dedicated module that transforms legacy data into a normalized representation. Information provided in a standardized form thereby enables semantic interoperability between different systems and allows medical add-on applications to connect. A secure digital communication network guarantees easy and direct data sharing. ByMedConnect aims to evaluate the achieved theoretical preliminary work in practice and to draft approaches, which can be applied beyond the pilot application.

Standardized and flexible health data management with an archetype driven EHR system (EHRflex).

To build a semantically interoperable Electronic Health Record is one of the most challenging research fields in health informatics. In order to reach this objective, EHR standards that formally describe health data structures have to be used. CEN EN13606 is one of the most promising approaches. It covers the technical needs for semantic interoperability and, at the same time, it incorporates a mechanism (archetype model) that enables clinical domain experts to participate in building an EHR system. In this paper we present EHRflex, a generic system based on archetypes. It empowers the clinician and allows him to manage his own EHR system in a simple and generic way, assuring that the user works with underlying standardized data structures. These can be exchanged with other people and systems when needed. EHRflex introduces EHR standards into the clinical routine delivering a technical platform which works directly on archetype based data.