eHealth Standards and Profiles in Action for Europe and Beyond

The eStandards CSA is proposed by HL7, CEN TC251, & IHE, leading Standards Organizations (SDOs), and is supported by the eHealth Network, ISO TC215, GS1, IHTSDO, IEEE11073, and IMIA to advance eHealth interoperability and global alignment of standards with seven objectives:

1. Join up with Stakeholders in Europe and globally to build consensus on eHealth standards, accelerate knowledge-sharing, and promote wide adoption of standards.
2. Deliver an evidence-based Roadmap for alignment, iterative consolidation, and broad acceptance of eStandards that is endorsed by SDOs, the eHealth Network, the providers, and the Industry.
3. Contribute to the eHealth Interoperability Framework use cases focusing on clinical content modelling for different paradigms and embed a Quality Management System for interoperability testing and certification of eHealth systems.
4. Collect evidence and provide guidance on the coexistence of competing or overlapping standards in large-scale eHealth deployment nationally and cross-border.
5. Participate in EU/US MoU roadmap actions as the international patient summaries standard.
6. Explore socio-economic aspects of eHealth interoperability, revisiting the language for user-vendor interaction that embodies ‘co-making’ in trust, collaboration and long-term engagement.
7. Align across PHC-34 to nurture innovation, sustainability & growth under CEF and beyond contributing to Key actions of the Digital Agenda 2020.

Educational Webinar: IHE Pharmacy Domain Update

IHE (Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise) annually presents a series of free educational webinars from June through September.

The series will help your organization learn about IHE; engage in IHE development and testing activities; and, leverage IHE solutions to develop and implement interoperable health IT systems.

Pharmacy Overview:     

PHARM Learning Objectives:

• Understand PHARM vision, mission and strategic goals.
• Understand PHARM domain's liaison and collaboration with HL7 and ISO.
• Overview of existing PHARM profiles and Community and Hospital Pharmacy, including Community Medication Prescription and Dispense, Hospital Medication Workflow, Medication Treatment Plan     

OpenMedicine - for the safety of medicines and patients

OpenMedicine is an ambitious attempt to support health policy development across European countries and globally in a matter that may affect all of us, since it impacts safety and quality of healthcare in general, and cross-border healthcare in particular.

To better enable cross-border healthcare delivery, particularly the exchange of ePrescriptions and safe dispensation of prescribed medicinal products, the openMedicine global initiative advances the unique identification of medicinal products (MPs) and thereby patient safety in cross-border settings.

Towards digital health - electronic information for safe use of medicinal products

European Economic and Social Committee published on 16 September 2015 an Opinion on:

"Towards digital health - electronic information for safe use of medicinal products"  (own-initiative opinion) [Rapporteur: Renate Heinisch].

On 22 January 2015, the European Economic and Social Committee, acting under Rule 29(2) of its Rules of Procedure, decided to draw up an own-initiative opinion on Towards digital health – electronic information for safe use of medicinal products (own-initiative opinion).

The Section for the Single Market, Production and Consumption, which was responsible for preparing the Committee's work on the subject, adopted its opinion on 14 July 2015.

eHealth interoperability: The scene is now clearly shaped

Last July, the European Commission recognised 27 profiles and standards for healthcare systems to be developed through public procurement. This is a step forward for reaching the European Digital Single Market in eHealth.

Many countries in Europe are developing eHealth strategies in order to offer their citizens a better quality of care within a financially sustainable healthcare system. The population is ageing and has specific needs, whilst mobility is increasing in Europe.

These challenges are addressed with the development of new technologies that support the necessary and required connection of healthcare ICT used in healthcare organisations and at regional, national and cross-border levels.

In this respect, a common European Interoperability Framework was defined and published by the European Commission in 2012. It describes an initial set of use cases and a selection of 27 Profiles and Standards.

After an evaluation process and consultation of the European multi-stakeholder platform for ICT, the European Commission has now identified and recognised these 27 so called IHE ("Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise") Profiles for procurement.

EAHP Academy Seminar 2015: From medicines reconciliation to medicines optimisation

From 11th to 12th September 2015, over 50 hospital pharmacists from 30 countries gathered in Zagreb, Croatia for a focused weekend of education development on the theme

"From medicines reconciliation to medicines optimisation".

Experts speakers from across Europe addressed diverse aspects of medicines reconciliation services, including:

• medicines reconciliation on admission; 
• lessons learnt for successful implementation of medicines reconciliation; 
• integrated medicines management with a focus on the discharge process; and, 
• structured patient interviews on error incidence and severity.