European Union initiatives aim for cross-border EHR interoperability

The European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union (EU), has launched two health initiatives to improve the quality and safety of healthcare to individuals from EU countries who require medical assistance while living or traveling abroad, according to a July 2 press release.

 

The recommendation aims to provide EU member states basic principles and guidelines to ensure that physicians can access vital information about patients they are treating, regardless of the location of that information in Europe, according to the press release.

 

The initiatives include a recommendation for EU cross-border interoperability of EHR systems and a concurrent Smart Open Services (SOS) Project to demonstrate its benefits, the press release said.

 

The SOS Project, co-funded by the commission and supported by the EU’s 12 member states, aims to demonstrate the benefits of interoperability by enabling health professionals to access specific medical data of patients from other EU countries.

 

Participants will include Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, the press release said. Electronic records will be voluntary and created only at the citizen’s request.

 

“Traveling around the European Union is taken for granted, until something goes wrong,” Viviane Reding, the EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media, said in the press release. “This is why the EU's initiatives on e-health 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.”

 

Click here to read the press release.