The process of digital transformation in the field of health and care services throughout Europe has slowed down due to the heterogeneity of the Member States. Citizens’ personal data, in fact, are not yet accessible with the same efficiency throughout the European territory and the standards of electronic medical records used in different countries are not compatible with each other.
This situation has serious consequences in terms of rapidity of diagnosis and quality of health care at European level. The solution to this problem comes from the European Commission, which has recently undertaken a series of actions aimed at favouring the cross-border complementarity of the health systems of Member States and at stimulating innovation in the sector through digital transformation.
THE MAIN CHALLENGE OF E-HEALTH IS THE HEALTH DATA SHARING
In addition to reducing costs and improving patient’s experience, the priorities of healthcare are: operational efficiency, interoperability, increased data visibility and the development of new models to create a better relationship with patients.
Healthcare systems will focus on facing increasing cost pressure. Technology will be the key solution to improve efficiency, through interoperability between the systems working on visibility and the insights needed to identify inefficiencies. Improving patient’s experience through quantitative and measurable tools is the main objective of the new healthcare and social care services.
The modernisation of the patient’s experience has improved thanks to the usage of medical software and data sharing in the electronic patient records.
EU MEASURES FOR SAFE SHARING OF HEALTHCARE DATA
Projects recently conceived by the EU aim to ensure the overcoming of obstacles linked to the absence of e-health solutions, for the safe sharing of healthcare data.
The Konfido project, for example, was funded under Horizon 2020 and involves also Italy among its case studies. The sharing of health data, and therefore the secure access of citizens to them, is one of the fundamental priorities set by the European Commission with regard to the digitisation of the health system.
Cross-border access to health data represents a fundamental goal to be achieved for the future sustainability of health systems, both nationally and regionally. Ensuring secure access to health information and sharing electronic patient records brings important benefits to health and social care and leads to a reduction in the overall public resources invested in this sector.
The objective is to guarantee, to all European citizens, quality and uniform health care in all Member States. The exchange of patient data in digital format between various healthcare facilities is useful to save money in invasive, expensive and repetitive exams, as well as bringing benefits in terms of timeliness of diagnosis.
The dissemination of shared healthcare and digital healthcare solutions gives the opportunity to start the process of modernising the national health systems. This process is indispensable, given the increase in assistance needs due to the aging of the European population and the increase in the demand for long-term care.
Access to health data contained in electronic patient records shared across the EU can offer enormous benefits to European citizens:
- immediate access to patient information in case of accident in another EU Member State: it will be possible to access data on any chronic diseases, allergies or intolerances to certain medicines, allowing the doctors of the host structure to promptly provide the most effective treatment
- guarantee of continuity of assistance provided to citizens moving within the European Union, in order to improve patient’s assistance
- promotion of medical research to face important health challenges. For example, chronic or neurodegenerative diseases, can be managed better thanks to the sharing of patient data, in full compliance with the European data protection standards
- support for the efficiency and sustainability of health systems by sharing of radiological or laboratory exams, to avoid repeating the same exams in multiple hospitals, saving time and reducing hospital costs
CLINICAL KNOWLEDGE PORTAL, THE SHARING HEALTH DATA SOFTWARE
The CKP – Clinical Knowledge Portal was created with the aim of making medicine customised and safe, thanks to the easy sharing of patient data. The IT platform is the fruit of a collaboration between doctors and it was born as a portal of clinical knowledge, in order to make healthcare data homogeneous and comprehensible everywhere.
Thanks to this personal data storage system, information barriers are overcome, convergence on univocal terms is achieved and actions are planned for patient seeking care, reducing risks and time, thus increasing the time to devote to the relationship with the patients. They do not need to physically move and bring with them all the exams made and their health data; the information will be easily reachable on the portal. The Clinical Knowledge Portal revolutionises the whole clinical process and healthcare organisation and it improves the sustainability of the National Health Service.
The digitisation of health care has been neglected for a long time and too little has been invested in it. However, savings are real and linked to a productivity recovery of at least 6.8 billion euros a year for healthcare facilities and 7,6 for citizens.
The clinical process is designed to optimise the relationship with the patient, with the support of tools that allow the interconnection between doctors and the access to all those clinical data useful for diagnosis.
The portal enables to move data and not people, to share the clinical process and it gives to doctors the possibility of easily collaborating with each other, improving the quality of healthcare and saving valuable public resources.
This important change can only take place if the various actors involved, from healthcare professionals to general practitioners and patients, will be aware of the potentiality offered by software for sharing personal health data and whether they will work together to take full advantages of these new digital technologies.
The CKP Portal reduces the risk of misinterpretation and revolutionises totally the clinical process, enabling to plan the most effective treatments for patients and to share the guidelines and the best practices useful to change the whole healthcare organisation.