An effort worth making

There is a danger that international interoperability of healthcare may be one of those noble causes which wins applause but in which nobody really believes

Our report 'A Standard for Europe' outlines the efforts the EU is making to promote the cause, at least within Europe, with its plan for a "European health information space" by 2015. In other words, it wants to enable clinicians around the continent to share patient data when necessary within the next seven years.

Given the current landscape, in which we're still struggling to achieve interoperability within the member states, this may appear a pipe dream rather than a realisable ambition. Seven years seems a short time to deal with all the technical, process and language problems that would have to be overcome, especially seen from the English perspective, where there are still a lot people, not just opposition politicians, who seem to oppose the whole priniciple of the National Programme for IT. But it would be wrong to turn away from the effort.

The fact is that we live in a world where people are moving more freely across international barriers. All of us can anticipate regularly travelling overseas, even living in another country, and when faced with the need for medical attention we will all appreciate our histories being available to the clinicians treating us. Unless the trend for increased international travel goes into reverse, patient mobility around Europe is a factor that cannot be ignored.

In addition, the EU is due to publish a directive on plans to refer patients to another member state when they face an undue delay at home.
In this context, it would be selling patients short not to make the effort to ensure that healthcare systems around the continent cannot speak to each other.

Maybe the 2015 target is over-ambitious, but it could still produce something worthwhile. In 1999 the prime minister set a target for all governmental services to be online by 2005. Whether they were achieved it depends heavily on interpretation, and there were areas in which it was hardly relevant, but it did kick start a process which has involved a lot of successful projects, and a recognition of what IT can provide for the sector. Hopefully the EU target will have a similar effect, and we will see the cause of interoperability in European healthcare make big strides in the next few years.