The EU is addressing the lack of interoperability among electronic health records on a multinational level. According to the European Commission, “The deployment of eHealth technologies in Europe can improve the quality of care, reduce medical costs and foster independent living, including in remote places. … To exploit the full potential of new eHealth services, the EU needs to remove legal and organisational barriers, particularly those to pan-European interoperability.” The Digital Agenda for Europe, proposed in May 2010, aims to do that. By 2012, it requires a minimum common set of patient data that would make electronic patient records, accessed or exchanged across member states, interoperable. The plan also calls for pilot projects to equip Europeans with secure online access to their health data by 2015.
Health Records in Europe
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