Commission weighs up options on eHealth interoperability

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 to the widespread take-up of eHealth application in the EU. The Commission has launched a public consultation on the issue with a view to adopting specific guidelines later in the year.

The Commission adopted on 16 July 2007 its Draft Recommendation on eHealth Interoperability and submitted it to informal public consultation. The final Recommendation is expected to be adopted later in 2007 and is set to contribute to the achievement of “a European health information space” by the end of the year 2015.

The draft outlines a set of recommended guidelines for good practice on eHealth interoperability and proposes a number of actions addressed to member states, industries and associations that work in the eHealth field. According to the Commission, the Recommendation has relevance also for the European Economic Area (EEA) countries.

The draft proposes actions:

• at political and legal level – such as building a political platform to set up the necessary legal and regulatory environment for eHealth interoperability. This could involve more effective coordination and harmonisation of national legislations and would address a number of initiatives in relation to privacy and confidentiality issues;
• on creating the organisational framework or process and interfaces, in and through which national eHealth infrastructures and services can interact;
• on applications – to agree, for example, on standards for semantic interoperability; 
• on architectural and technical interoperability – to establish common communication platforms, which, for example, would address security-related issues and agree on a single certification and accreditation process, and;
• on monitoring and evaluation.

According to the Commission, the ultimate goal of the Recommendation is “to contribute to enabling the provision of a means for authorised healthcare professionals to gain managed access to essential health information about patients [such as the appropriate parts of a patient’s electronic health record, patient summary and emergency data], subject to the patient’s consent, and with full regard for data protection and security requirements” across Europe.

Read more with Euractiv

Eating meat contributes to global warming, says study

Eating one kilogram of beef produces more greenhouse gas emissions than driving for three hours while leaving the lights on at home, according to a new study from Japan that examines the CO2 emissions resulting from bringing an average beef cow to market.