Developer | Ministry of Health |
Project operator | Ministry of Digital Governance |
Budget | € 190,000,000.00 excluding VAT |
What is the object of the project?
Taking into account the above, the object of the present project involves the following:
- The Digitization and Electronic Management of the Historical Archive of Patient Files of Health Units, with the aim of providing comprehensive information for patients, integrating medical information from the historical archive with an emphasis on the following:
- immediate electronic display,
- permanent and unalterable digital storage,
- rescuing highly valuable information of the historical archive of patient files from the existing storage conditions (alteration due to age, loss due to human factors or natural disasters),
- immediate release of vital operational spaces within the Hospitals,
- geographic independence regarding the ability to access and share Patient Care information.
- The Normalization-Correlation of Physical Archiving Protocol and Electronic Patient Archive, with the aim of integrating all the medical information of each patient in a digital file, with an emphasis on the following:
- patient-centered approach to the existing access system, with more search information, retrieval of primary data throughout the historical archive,
- its utilization by the scientific community to facilitate medical research and education,
- interoperability between individual, heterogeneous systems,
- provision of medical information at the place and time of the provision of medical services.
In particular, for the first Implementing agreement, the project will also include the implementation of a repository and a digital document transmission system.
The project also includes the following services:
- Implementation Study – Requirement Analysis and Interoperability & Interconnection Study
- Security Study
- Migration Services
- Training Services
- Pilot Operation Services
- Testing Services
- Warranty and Maintenance Services
What is the purpose and the objectives of the present Project?
The purpose of the project is the digitization of the Historical Archive of Patient Files and the Normalization – Correlation of the Physical Archiving Protocol with the Electronic Patient Archive. This project concerns the digitization of 157,000,000 pages & Imaging Exams of Various Sizes up to A3, 20,000,000 pages of non-standard sizes (A3+, cards, etc.) and 20,000,000 ECG/EEG films/prints, as well as the identification, categorization and characterization of digitized documents.
Digitization will help retrieve a patient file (either electronic or physical) in a very short time.
As a result of the normalization-correlation of the Physical Archiving Protocol with the Electronic Patient Archive, it will be possible to provide quality patient service in a very short time.
The final purpose of this project is to provide digital, online services to each end user in order to have access to information related to the Medical History obtained during hospitalization of patients in the Public Hospitals of Greece. The final users of these services are citizens who have been hospitalized in Public Hospitals of Greece, as well as authorized staff of health units in the context of providing medical and nursing services to inpatients and outpatients.
The digitized material will be accessible through the document handling application-repository with the aim of transferring all the digitized material and metadata to a Central Repository (not the subject of this project) of digitized clinical documents, which will be installed in the Cloud Health of IDIKA, which will be able, through interoperability and the metadata of the EPDIH, to feed the National infrastructure of the National Digital Patient Health Archive (NDPHR) providing an overview to citizens’ data and documents through the application of the Individual Electronic Health Archive (IEHR), thus enabling health professionals and patients/citizens to gain comprehensive access to their health data related to Secondary/Tertiary health care.
At the same time, the implementation of the project will upgrade the provided health services, but also reduce health costs due to the immediate access to history data and the avoidance of repeating tests that were already carried out in other health units.
What are the expected benefits from the implementation of this project?
The main benefits that will result from the creation of the project are the following:
- Reduces destruction of medical documents.
- Increases productivity and improves processes within the Patient Archive, with the electronic direct dissemination of information to the appropriate recipient chain
- Improves the performance of employees and scientists, who will no longer feel outraged or tired trying to find a document/diagnostic material and will be able to use their time on other tasks that are more fit to their skills and capabilities.
- Increases staff access to information.
- Minimizes the possibility of losing a document/diagnostic material once its information is entered into the system.
- Provides the possibility to create manageable high volume content.
- There is interaction between the user and the document, as the user is, in most cases, able to edit the document.
- Provides easy search and quick retrieval of the requested information, thus minimizing the response time for the implementation of key processes.
- Achieves standardization/grouping, which offers a great advantage in searching.
- Ensures secure handling and protection of documents/diagnostic material
- The files / documents are protected through the back up process.
- Certain directly connected data are automatically correlated by the system. This means saving valuable time and cost in man-hours.
- Provides the possibility of integration with the information systems of hospitals, maximizing the efficiency of the latter with all that this brings about.
- Utilizes important information for research purposes related to investigating the effectiveness of treatment methods in various diseases.