Semantics Management for a Regional Health Information System in Italy by CTS2 and FHIR.

An infrastructure for the management of semantics is being developed to support the regional health information exchange in Veneto - an Italian region which has about 5 million inhabitants. Terminology plays a key role in the management of the information fluxes of the Veneto region, in which the management of electronic health record is given great attention. An architecture for the management of the semantics of laboratory reports has been set up, adopting standards by HL7. The system has been initially developed according to the common terminology service release 2 (CTS2) standard and, in order to overcome complexities of CTS2 is being revised according to the Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) standard, which has been subsequently introduced. Aspects of CST2 and of FHIR have been considered in order to retain most suitable aspects of both. This integration can be regarded as most worthwhile.

Healthcare Associated Infections: An Interoperable Infrastructure for Multidrug Resistant Organism Surveillance.

Prevention and surveillance of healthcare associated infections caused by multidrug resistant organisms (MDROs) has been given increasing attention in recent years and is nowadays a major priority for health care systems. The creation of automated regional, national and international surveillance networks plays a key role in this respect. A surveillance system has been designed for the Abruzzo region in Italy, focusing on the monitoring of the MDROs prevalence in patients, on the appropriateness of antibiotic prescription in hospitalized patients and on foreseeable interactions with other networks at national and international level. The system has been designed according to the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) principles, and Healthcare Service Specification (HSSP) standards and Clinical Document Architecture Release 2 (CDAR2) have been adopted. A description is given with special reference to implementation state, specific design and implementation choices and next foreseeable steps. The first release will be delivered at the Complex Operating Unit of Infectious Diseases of the Local Health Authority of Pescara (Italy).

A SOA Based Solution for MDRO Surveillance and Improved Antibiotic Prescription in the Abruzzo Region.

Prevention and control of hospital and community acquired infections caused by multi drug resistant organisms (MDROs) are one major priority nowadays for health care systems worldwide. To improve actions and plans to tackle this problem, the creation of automated regional, national and international MDRO surveillance networks is a mandatory path for international health Institutions and Ministries. In this paper, the authors report on the surveillance system designed for the Abruzzo Region (Central Italy) to monitor the prevalence of MDROs in both infected and colonized patients, to verify appropriateness of antibiotic prescription in hospitalized patients and to interact with other national and sovra-national networks. Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) approach, different Healthcare Service Specification Project (HSSP) standards, local, national and international terminology and Clinical Document Architecture Release 2 (CDA R2) were adopted to design the overall architecture of this regional surveillance system. The Authors discuss the state of implementation of the project, itemizing specific design and implementation choices adopted so far and sketching next steps and reasons of some design and implementation choices, and indicate the next steps.

A semi-automatic web based tool for the selection of research projects reviewers.

The correct evaluation of research proposals continues today to be problematic, and in many cases, grants and fellowships are subjected to this type of assessment. A web based semi-automatic tool to help in the selection of reviewers was developed. The core of the proposed system is the matching of the MeSH Descriptors of the publications submitted by the reviewers (for their accreditation) and the Descriptor linked to the research keywords, which were selected. Moreover, a citation related index was further calculated and adopted in order to discard not suitable reviewers. This tool was used as a support in a web site for the evaluation of candidates applying for a fellowship in the oncology field.