Health Information Systems (Informationssysteme im Gesundheitswesen)

Abstract

Summary Hospital Information Systems have been emerging towards Health Information Systems (HIS) for more than a decade. Systems have spread across institutional borders, and regional health networks are being supported. Furthermore, E-Health is starting to become a reality. In the same time, HIS functionality has significantly improved: systems have become by far more comprehensive, providing essential information and knowledge to health care professionals, supporting quality management, improving patient safety, and providing means to inform patients. Old and new problems, however, remain to be solved, and significant challenges exist. Among them are the need for flexibility, extensibility, seamless integration, and adaptation to work processes. Health Information Systems need to cope with change and with the evolution of medical concepts. Continuous quality improvement of distributed health care processes needs to be supported. The underlying IT infrastructure has to gradually overcome semantic heterogeneity of systems, and to provide support for inter-institutional workflow. In this article, we will present both challenges and architectural approaches for future HIS.