ABSTRACT
This paper presents an overview and comparison of national efforts on ePrescribing in Finland and Greece focusing on aspects of interoperability and standards. Building on experience of HL7 affiliates in Finland and Greece, the role of HL7 Clinical Document Architecture (CDA) in assuring interoperability within the national and cross-border framework for ePrescription is addressed underlining current use of standards and interoperability challenges for large scale adoption.
Subject(s)
Electronic Prescribing , Medical Informatics/organization & administration , Finland , Greece , Health Policy , Humans , Medical Record Linkage , Systems IntegrationABSTRACT
The role of standards is constantly increasing in health services, electronic health records, and eHealth applications. There are many areas of standardization which affect the healthcare work and health information systems. On a national level, the organization of the development and support for standardization should be a key priority. This paper summarizes a national study in Finland which reviewed the current status of eHealth standardization and made recommendations for the national standardization and the use of standards. The recommendations are related to the organization model and balanced participation, international and cross-domain collaboration and quality assurance of standards-related activities. In addition, education and support services and support for introductions and pilots are recommended to improve the know-how of standards in system acquisitions.
Subject(s)
Information Systems/standards , Medical Records Systems, Computerized/standards , Data Collection , Finland , National Health Programs , Organizational ObjectivesABSTRACT
Different approaches are available for the integration of existing health information systems (HIS) in integration projects. Within the PlugIT project in Finland, we have found it necessary to design and implement integration in a collaborative, multidisciplinary and open way. In this paper, we use some generic integration models and relate them to the methods, solutions and experiences of the project. We summarize the results from nine integration teams, methods development and supporting surveys and studies, and discuss these experiences to provide some guidelines for the HIS integration projects in general.
Subject(s)
Information Systems/organization & administration , Software , Systems Integration , Hospital Information Systems/organization & administration , Software DesignABSTRACT
Integration of the heterogeneous application systems in healthcare is needed to support the clinical and administrative work, patient-centric care, regional interoperability and utilisation of both valuable legacy systems and new technologies. The integration activity is complicated, and must be supported by flexible processes and methods. The integration methods should support the evaluation and specification of different integration approaches, standards and technologies on many interoperability levels. We introduce a process for specifying many integration decisions for a given integration situation. The process is part of an integration method, which is validated in PlugIT project in Finland.
Subject(s)
Decision Making, Computer-Assisted , Medical Records Systems, Computerized , Software , Systems Integration , Humans , Interprofessional Relations , Patient Care TeamABSTRACT
Integrating heterogeneous application systems in healthcare is needed to support clinical work, patient-centric care, regional interoperability and utilization of both valuable legacy systems and new technologies. The integration process is quite complicated, and must be supported by flexible integration processes and methods. The integration methods should support evaluation and specification of different integration approaches and technologies on many different interoperability levels. We introduce a process for specifying many integration decisions for a given integration situation. The process is part of an integration method, which is validated in PlugIT project in Finland.
