In Germany data between healthcare institutions is usually either exchanged by official forms (e.g. used for referrals or hospitalizations) or by doctors’ letters (e.g. discharge letters, examination reports). Even if the data is captured digitally, printouts remain the main transfer media. The archetype model of ISO EN 13606 provides a means to define medical content and knowledge for the electronic exchange of health records. The ByMedConnect project aims for a standardized medical data exchange within a regional health network by integrating legacy data and enabling a provision of data according to the needs of health professionals.

A communication module has been specified to addresses this task. It converts data out of routine systems into a standardized format. Besides the technical implementation, the definition of the medical content to be transmitted is very important. The „Continuity of Care Record“ (CCR) of ASTM defines a lean and application-oriented dataset that gives a generic summary on the relevant data of a health record. ByMedConnect advanced this work and adapted the data set to the German health environment while integrating requirements which were collected from health professionals. An archetype based visualization layer is being developed to make the solution customizable and user friendly and the communication solution will be piloted by the doctors’ Network GO-IN in the region of Ingolstadt.

For more information please read the project web pages (www.ByMedConnect.de)

The project is sponsored by the Bavarian State Ministry of the Environment and Public Health (http://www.stmug.bayern.de)