Un projet pilote pour supprimer les obstacles linguistiques aux soins de santé à l’étranger[en] 

The lack of interoperability in systems and services, such as electronic health records, patient summaries and emergency data sets, has been identified as a major obstacle towards the widespread take-up of eHealth applications in the EU. 

The European Commission's notion of eHealth interoperability is two-fold. In addition to the technical definition of the term that relates to connecting systems and exchanging information, it also seeks to recognise the concept of connecting people, data, and diverse health systems, while taking into account the relevant social, political, regulatory, business, industry and organisational factors.

The development of interoperable healthcare systems across the EU 27 was defined as one of the main priorities in the bloc's eHealth action plan up to 2010.

A draft Recommendation on eHealth Interoperability  was submitted for informal public consultation  in July 2007.

Following the 2007 stakeholder consultation on the issue, the Commission Recommendation  was adopted on 2 July 2008 and outlines the steps that member states should take to establish an Electronic Health Records (EHR) system compatible with those in other member states. 

EHRs are records of a patient's health information on, for example, past medical history, treatment progress, medications or laboratory data. As patients become more mobile within Europe, EHRs that are readable by health professionals in different settings and languages would enable both safer treatments and reduce the overall cost of health care. 

A key objective of the recommendation, according to the Commission, is "to allow patients to choose to access his/her important information stored in electronic health record systems anywhere at any time". 

It invites member states to undertake action at:

• The overall political level to set up the necessary regulatory and financial environment to make eHealth infrastructure and services interoperable; 
• the organisational level to create, for example, a common domain accompanied by the necessary interfaces that enable the national domains to interact;  
• the technical level to promote use of technical standards and to establish common interoperability platforms;  
• the semantic level to agree on common priorities and specific applications, and;
• the level of education and awareness raising to monitor and consider all intended and related developments.  

The recommendation will be implemented by the Smart Open Services project (S.O.S.) , also launched on 2 July. 

The project is a three-year €22 million joint initiative by the Commission and 12 member states and their industry players to demonstrate the benefits of interoperable EHR and electronic prescriptions. The stated aim is "to remove linguistic, administrative and technical barriers within the EU" by making essential information on the medical and medication history of a patient available for a doctors treating the patient far from home.

The project will first examine the participating countries' level of maturity and deployment of patient summaries and ePrescriptions, consider legal questions and develop technical specifications for a secure use of personal health data. After, the solutions will be defined, test and validate in real-life situations. 

The project will build on national initiatives of Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Slovakia, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The information collected is said to include "a summary of essential information" such as blood group, allergies, medical conditions or ongoing medication". The records are said to be purely voluntary, "created only at the citizen's request, respecting his/her right to privacy". 

Experiences and lessons learned from the project will be used to update the Commission Recommendation on the interoperability of EHR.

"The EU's initiatives on eHealth intend to remove linguistic administrative and technical barriers, by making it easier for people to receive treatment even when they are away from their home country. I expect our recommendation and the SOS project to make an important contribution to saving patients' lives in emergencies," said EU Information Society Commissioner  Viviane Reding.

Health First Europe, an alliance of patients, academics, healthcare experts and the medical technology industry, calls on the EU "to facilitate the development and integration of eHealth into the provision of day-to-day healthcare services" and hopes the recommendation will clarify current legal uncertainties and lead to harmonised standards to speed up eHealth development.