The following important article appeared a few days ago.
Interoperability road map in development
11 Feb 2008
A Turkish research consortium is developing a road map for e-health interoperability that would eventually link up the health information systems of EU Member States in a seamless web.
Researchers at the Software Research and Development Centre, based in the Middle East Technical University (METU), have found that Europeans are more mobile than ever before, but although European health services have introduced sophisticated electronic information management systems, they are often designed to work on a local level and are often not interoperable.
With EU funding, they have developed RIDE, an interoperability solution designed to link up regional and national health information systems into a seamless European web.
RIDE is a roadmap project for interoperability of e-health systems leading to recommendations for actions and to preparatory actions at the European level.
The project’s nine partners in seven countries have already drawn up two draft versions of their e-health interoperability road map and work is in progress on the final version. This document complements the objectives of the Commission’s e-health action plan, particularly with regard to semantic interoperability.
“Two crucial principles have been identified by the RIDE project. The first is the central leadership of the European Commission in coordinating Member State activities and the second is the need for an incremental deployment process in which growing - in physical coverage - and evolving - increasing functionality - pilots are being developed across Member States,” said Asuman Dogac, a professor at the Department of Computer Engineering at METU.
Tackling the ‘interoperability challenge’ requires EU Member States to make concerted efforts to create national and Union-wide interoperability, Dogac added:
“Europeans are more mobile than ever before, moving not only around their own countries, but also across a largely borderless EU, in pursuit of leisure, education, career advancement or cultural enrichment. This enhanced mobility has brought with it challenges. What happens if a person falls sick away from home or moves to another part of the country or another country altogether?
Continue reading here:
http://ehealtheurope.net/news/3459/interoperability_road_map_in_development
The official web site for the project can be found here:
The project is described in the following terms at the web site:
“RIDE is a roadmap project for interoperability of eHealth systems leading to recommendations for actions and to preparatory actions at the European level. This roadmap will prepare the ground for future actions as envisioned in the action plan of the eHealth Communication COM 356 by coordinating various efforts on eHealth interoperability in member states and the associated states. Since it is not realistic to expect to have a single universally accepted clinical data model that will be adhered to all over the Europe and that the clinical practice, terminology systems and EHR systems are all a long way from such a complete harmonization; the RIDE project will address the interoperability of eHealth systems with special emphasis on semantic interoperability. In order to create RIDE Roadmap, first the European best practices in providing semantic interoperability for eHealth domain will be assessed and the quantified requirements to create a valid roadmap will be identified. Based on these requirements, the goals, and the economical, legal, financial and technological challenges of the industry for the 21st century for achieving interoperability in eHealth solutions will be elaborated. RIDE will also focus on the limitations of the policies and strategies currently used in deploying interoperable eHealth solutions. A research portal for sharing resources addressing semantic interoperability in eHealth domain will be created and maintained; the key actors and stakeholders will be coordinated around RIDE special interest groups to create a wide consensus at the European level. Through eight RIDE workshops a shared vision for building a Europe-wide semantically interoperable eHealth infrastructure will be created. After assessing the gaps between the 'as-is' situation and the 'to-be' eHealth vision, the emerging trends and opportunities to achieve the vision statement, the required advances in the state of the art research, technology and standards will be identified.”
The seriousness of the project can be seen in the 1.15 million Euro budget (Approx $A1.9 million) and the number of organisations involved.
Most valuable are the public deliverables which can be found here:
http://www.srdc.metu.edu.tr/webpage/projects/ride/modules.php?name=Deliverables
Anyone with even the least interest in the paths to interoperation being pursued in Europe should spend an hour or two browsing here. I wonder how much NEHTA is across all this?
David.
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