Standardisation & Simplification
Objectives:
When considering eHealth services and how they can support the information sharing and collaboration needs of integrated care, the task can be made easier if the number of different systems in use, and the formats in which they store data, can be simplified. Practically, this means trying to consolidate data centres, standardising on fewer systems, and agreeing on what technical standards will be used across a region or country.
- Simplification of infrastructure; fewer integration points to manage; easier interoperability and procurement.
- Consolidation of applications and data centres into fewer sites.
- Regional standardisation on fewer (or single) solutions.
- Ability to view and exchange medical data from different systems across diverse care settings.
Assessment scale:
- No standards in place or planned that support integrated care services
- Discussion of the necessity of ICT to support integrated care and of any standards associated with that ICT is initiated
- An ICT infrastructure to support integrated care has been agreed together with a recommended set of technical standards – there may still be local variations or some systems in place are not yet standardised
- A recommended set of agreed technical standards at regional/national level; some shared procurements of new systems at regional/national level; some large-scale consolidations of ICT underway
- A unified set of agreed standards to be used for system implementations specified in procurement documents; many shared procurements of new systems; consolidated data centres and shared services widely deployed
- A unified and mandated set of agreed standards to be used for system implementations fully incorporated into procurement processes; clear strategy for technical specification of new systems in regional/national procurement of new systems; consolidated datacentres and shared services (including the cloud) is normal practice.
