Smart Systems for Health Agency (SSHA) in Ontario is planning to provide a voluntary EHR that will allow both healthcare professionals and patient’s access to their own medical records within the next five years. The EHR is planned as a mashup of independent databases located throughout the province that will provide a lifetime health history for all citizens.
Combining existing data stores with user managed content makes the system potentially more comprehensive than similar private sector offerings from Microsoft and Google, however the level of complexity involved in developing middleware connections to thousands of hospitals, physicians offices and long term care facilities and then layering appropriate levels of security that will still allow the system to be easily accessible will provide significant challenges. With only 8 percent of physician’s offices currently connected to SSHA as well, the 5 year goal may be a bit optimistic.
Building a medical grade network is the key to any healthcare ICT project and in this area SSHA is well set. Overcoming this challenge however, may seem minor when compared to the herculanean effort ahead of SSHA when it begins to integrate potentially thousands of data sources. Normalization of the data will further increase the complexity and the need to ensure that when “John Smith” looks up his own patient record, he sees only his medical information and not that of one of the other 400 individuals with the same name. Furthermore, as Bill Albino, the CEO of SSHA points out, “When a patient has a deadly disease, and that information has to get to the correct physician and the correct patient, you can’t afford mistakes”.
SSHA’s plan to ensure consistency and security will therefore be accomplished via a Master Patient Index (MPI) that will serve as the single source of truth in a centralized data warehouse located in SSHA’s data centre. Establishing a one-patient, one–record system that is both secure and accurate will indeed rest on the success of this project.
Reference Links:
ITBusiness.ca – Smart systems help you manage your health online
Smart Systems for Health Agency
