EU funds help: EU fund project improved access to medical data for doctors and patients

So what exactly was created at the Olomouc University Hospital? "The primary goal was to create a portal so that patients can read their medical data, medical documentation, and by logging in through the NIA (note: National Identity Authority) they can view it or even pass it on to their general practitioner," says Antonín Hlavinka, senior director for innovation and digitalization at the Olomouc University Hospital.

The portal is divided into two parts. "One is for patients and the other is for general practitioners and external doctors who, if they log in, are able to access their patients' data," Hlavinka explains. Patients have everything logged and can see who has viewed their documentation and what it contains. If something is not right, they have the opportunity to respond.
 
A JOINT PLATFORM FOR HEALTH PROFESSIONALS
The system is built on an affinity domain. That concept was developed by the IHE initiative (note: Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise), which introduced it as a synonym for a joint agreement of healthcare facilities that have agreed on the same rules of sharing and exchanging medical data as part of healthcare computerisation. 
 
But there is more that was created in the Olomouc University Hospital. "A part of the grant was used to modernize our internal systems and unify their communication into an integration platform. That's why it's called KIPE, i.e. communication integration platform for computerisation. This allowed us to compile medical data from our internal systems into one and create a so-called master patient index. And now that the data are unified, we are able to provide them to patients," says Hlavinka. This required hardware, i.e. an appropriate data centre. The data digitization in this project cost more than CZK 98 million, of which over 79 million was covered by an EU grant.
 
Putting everything into practice was not an easy task. "The preparation took at least a year, the tendering more than 12 months. "We followed recommendations of the European Commission who defined standards for e-health so that it is ready for future cross-border documentation exchange," says Hlavinka and continues: "We were inspired in Austria where a similar system had already been built. We decided to take that path because it's probably where all of Europe is headed. So we designed the system to be compatible with transnational standards. That's what made the project unique.” So the Olomouc University Hospital acts as the vanguard setting the direction for computerising healthcare in the Czech Republic.
 
It also wasn't easy to put all the data together. "We had to unify the data of our systems that are decades old, from a time when there was no standard, and get them on one platform," Hlavinka notes.
 
A MODEL FOR OTHERS AND PAPER SAVING
The Olomouc hospital has carried out a pilot project and their findings are already being applied by the health ministry. Their model will be used in the coming years to build a unified system that will be gradually joined by all healthcare facilities.
 
The new system will also reduce bureaucracy and save not only paper but also workers' time. “Another part of the project was the workflow of, let's say, non-medical documentation. We have an economic system and several different agenda systems that have also been centralized through the integration platform. "So we’ve got rid of paper invoices, contracts, orders, and we are expanding it to include the public procurement agenda," Hlavinka describes another positive aspect of the project.
 
The Olomouc project now provides in one place all laboratory results, X-rays, hospital discharge reports, simply everything after a single login. "It should work similarly throughout the country in the near future. Patients and their doctors will thus have the necessary data always and quickly available in one place," says Hlavinka.
 
"We were inspired in Austria where a similar system had already been built. We decided to take that path because it's where all of Europe is headed.” Antonín Hlavinka, senior director in the Olomouc University Hospital
 
MONEY FROM EU FUNDS HELPS HEALTH PROFESSIONALS IN OLOMOUC. Thousands of patients at the University Hospital in Olomouc benefit from a computer system that was installed with the support of EU funds. It collects all medical data that can be provided through protected access to patients, and especially other doctors and healthcare facilities.
The system that is currently operating in Olomouc will gradually be implemented by other hospitals in the country. And it should be accessible to healthcare professionals across the EU.
 
Photo: Deník daily/Petr Pelíšek + Olomouc University Hospital archive