Interoperable healthcare information system components for
continuity of care
Healthcare information systems architect, Professor Bernd Blobel,
offers some insight on the technological aspects of what has been
described as the most exciting challenge for healthcare informaticians
today.
keywords: healthcare systems
design, systems interoperability, electronic healthcare records, shared
care, security, standards.
abstract
Shared-care concepts such as managed care and continuity of care are
based on extended communication and co-operation between different
healthcare professionals or between them and the patient. Healthcare
information systems and their components, which are very different in
structure, behaviour, data and their semantics, as well as in
implementation details used in different environments for different
purposes, have to provide intelligent interoperability. Therefore,
flexibility, portability and future-orientation must be guaranteed using
the newest development of model-driven architecture.
Ongoing work for the German health-telematics platform, based on an
architectural framework and a security infrastructure, is described in
some detail. This concept of future-proof healthcare information
networks with virtual electronic healthcare records as a core
application starts with multifunctional electronic healthcards. It fits
into developments currently under way in many developed countries.
Br J Healthcare Comput Info Manage 2003; 20(7): 22–4. |
