The European Institute for Health Records or EuroRec Institute is a non-profit organization founded in 2002 as part of the ProRec initiative. On 13 May 2003, the institute was established as a non-profit organization under French law. Current President of EuroRec is Prof. Dipak Kalra. The institute is involved in the promotion of high quality Electronic Health Record systems in the European Union. One of the main missions of the institute is to support, as the European authorised certification body, EHRs certification development, testing and assessment by defining functional and other criteria.
The objectives of the institute are: To federate the established ProRec centres that comply with a set of explicit criteria. To develop specifically those activities that cannot be handled at the level of ProRec centres and/or within their scope, according to the principle of subsidiarity and in view of both synergy and economy of scale.
European projects
ARGOS
The main goal of the ARGOS project was to contribute to creating "Transatlantic Observatory for Meeting Global Health Policy Challenges through ICT-Enabled Solutions" to allow promotion of "Common Methods for Responding to Global eHealth Challenges in the EU and the US". The results are used to provide various users recommendations in sustaining co-ordinated actions. It is important to both Europe and the United States of America because:
There is a barrier in fostering healthcare globally as citizens travel and migrate It will help improve their products to better promote themselves in global markets The global experiences will become important information for both Europe and America
Through the challenges of enhancing ehealth strategy development, promoting benefits of consistent strategies and supporting large scale ehealth infrastructure implementations will allow Europe and United States researchers and policy makers gain mutual understanding and learning.
The main topics that were address within this project was; ehealth interoperability an EHR certifications, establishing an approach and identification of indicators of the usage and benefits of ehealth, and aiding clinicians in diagnosis and treatment of rare diseases through human physiology and disease modelling and simulation. However the project has highlighted challenges in establishing competent ehealth informatics staff. There are variations of understanding, qualification and definition of workforce requirements through Europe and The United States.
HITCH: Healthcare Interoperability Testing and Conformance Harmonisation
HITCH project begun 01/01/10 and ended on the 30/06/11. The objective of this project was to involve major stakeholders in defining and agreeing a roadmap that is essential to the foundation for the Interoperability Conformance Testing of information systems in the field of healthcare. HITCH project aims to propose plans on achieving interoperability conformance testing foundation starting 2011 through evaluating existing approaches and identifying potential gaps in initiatives. The roadmap will identify specific needs in improving processes and tools development that will support research. The roadmap will be tested in real-world settings with healthcare IT applications to determine the next logicals steps in establishing a credibility amongst major stakeholders (vendors, users, patients and authorities).
Q-REC: European Quality Labelling and Certification of Electronic Health Record systems (EHRs) The Q-REC project started 01/01/06 and finished on 30/06/08. It is a project that is a Specific Support Action and its objective is to supplement the existing e-Health ERA Co-ordination Project "Towards the establishment of a European e Health Research Area". Its aim is to create a credible, sustainable and efficient means of certifying EHR systems in Europe by concentrating EHR Systems Quality Labeling and Certification Development, Resources for EHR interoperatability, and Benchmarking Services.
Some of the goals stated by Q-REC and EuroREC webpage includes:
EHR Systems Quality Labelling and Certification Development
Developing a modern report on EHR-Certification Schemas that has been implemented in at least three European countries; Completing a Pan-European Requirements Assay; Proposing a Labelling Terminology and Functional Profiles for EHRs to be certified; Comparing and harmonising the EHR-Certification Procedures at a European level; Drafting Model Certification Guidelines and Procedures; Planning the Validation of the Guidelines.