In the European Union there are more than 800 different IT companies dealing with electronic medical records, where interoperability has to be established among some of them. Interoperability will contribute to a more optimal heath care, greater efficiency and effectiveness of health sector. eHealth interoperability enables the exchange of data and information among diverse information systems such as electronic health record, electronic medical record, personal health record, clinical studies, healthcare devices, insurance systems and health systems at national, European and global level. It is essential to have the right data and information available at all points of care in all areas for decision support in an understandable, safe, secure and private way.
Because information technology usage in healthcare sector is lagging behind other industry sectors, this sector needs more attention in implementing IT technology.
For optimal health data exchange in society on national and international level it is necessary to ensure technical, semantic, organizational and legal interoperability. Majority of IT solutions in healthcare must meet these types of interoperability.
First, thesis is focusing on eHealth technical and semantic international and local standards, which is a prerequisite for achieving broader interoperability and which dictate development of health information systems. Furthermore, these standards need to be included in architectural design of healthcare solutions. Great help to achieve this are OpenEHR and IHE (Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise).
Existing solutions need to be adopted to the new healthcare standards and recommendations and consider modern computer trends. The most important decision regarding data exchange among variety of IT solutions is use of SOA or REST technology, which depends on the needs and limited bandwidth.
Thesis middle part describes eHealth interoperability circumstances in EU and Slovenia, where guidelines are well designed, but the performance, at least in some countries, is unfolding too slow.
Emerging standard FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources) is further analysed, which could even replace all currently existing healthcare standards for data exchange. Our company solution fMedic is analysed to present guidelines, how to adjust it, to the new FHIR standard.
At the end there is set of guidelines and procedures, which have to be implemented when upgrading or developing interoperable eHealth solutions.
The main thesis objective is to help find quick way to adjust existing eHealth solutions for the need of interoperability.
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