Pieter Van Gorp is proud to announce the very successful completion of the master thesis project of Sven Bastianen. Sven has worked closely with SAP NL and for the final presentation the large number of attendees confirmed that he tackled a very relevant problem.
Abstract
In the past decade Care Delivery Organizations (CDOs) have widely adopted Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems for storing patient records digitally. As information technology is developing and healthcare is becoming more patient-centered, we notice the development of Personal Health Record (PHR) systems, which enable individuals to store their health-related information in a digital, online fashion. Together with the upcoming trend of Wearable Health Monitoring Systems (WHMSs), which ideally store their information in a PHR system, it is expected that individuals have a valuable collection of health information that can support the healthcare services that they receive.
In this research we investigate the technical challenges and barriers for integrating EMR systems and PHR systems and how these can be resolved in order to come to a more holistic approach in the way health information is used. We do this by analyzing currently existing PHR systems and investigating the current health information infrastructure in The Netherlands, while having a strong focus on interoperability standards, e.g. HL7 Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR). In order to also cover challenges that arise from a practical sense, we have built a prototype of an integrated PHR by setting up an interoperability scenario between the EMR system i.s.h.med of Cerner, part of SAP for Healthcare, and the PHR system HealthVault, developed by Microsoft. Subsequently we present an integration design for setting up an integrated PHR. The research is concluded with an architecture that implements the integration design into the current Dutch health information exchange infrastructure AORTA.
Thesis Text
Available from the TU/e library and from here. Thanks to SAP for not requiring any form of confidentiality.
