This way, the treating physician would get information on problems, allergies and medication of the patient, in the local language. Furthermore, the physician would be able to respond with a health encounter report afterwards.
An American in an Italian hospital
The demonstration in Boston, during the 5th EU-US eHealth Marketplace and Conference on 22 October, used the fictitious example of Martha, an American cancer survivor from San Diego, member of the Kaiser Permanente health plan, who visits Italy, has an accident, and is taken to the hospital.
The Italian physician requests Martha's patient summary from Kaiser Permanente, a US-based health system, using the local physician portal first established by the EU-funded epSOS project. The Italian doctor then retrieves it transformed in Italian. The Italian physician even can author a note for Martha’s physician back in the States.
An Italian in an American hospital
The fictitious case of Paolo Cerutti shows that the same functionality can be available for European citizens visiting the United States. Paolo, suffering from chronic hypertension, loses his new medication while traveling to San Francisco and can not explain the symptoms he is experiencing. The American GP successfully retrieves Paolo's patient summary and identifies his medication.
Electronic delivery gateway
The system uses a federated trust network of so-called electronic delivery gateways for seamless certified mailing across systems. "We have extended the open source technology developed in epSOS and maintained by the OpenNCP community. We can now reach across the Atlantic using a special 'Contact Point' for translation and transformation, called the Trillium Gateway," says project coordinator Catherine Chronaki (HL7 Foundation).
A Greek SME, Gnomon, developed the necessary extensions to the OpenNCP code to realize the demonstration. According to Alex Berler, who leads the effort for Gnomon, this is in line with their "eHealthPass" investment strategy in creating IT solutions for cross-border care. Gnomon was also assisted by its subcontractor iUZ, a Portuguese SME very active in the OpenNCP community, as part of its investment plan.
A CTS2 terminology service by Phast, a french association, was highly commented by Laurance Stuntz, Director of the Massachusetts eHealth Institute (MeHI) as an interoperability asset to be shared for the advancement of interoperability.
In Europe, the eHealth Network established under article 14 of the cross-border directive endorsed in November 2013, the guideline for a minimum health data set to be used in emergency or unplanned care cross-border situations.
Full report and images of the event.
Project website: www.trilliumbridge.eu