IT Communications in Healthcare

The healthcare is characterized by extreme specialization on patient data. The data have to be securely stored and transmitted but the data also have to be available in the case of emergency. Such data are usually protected by law and it's usage is subject to legal rules.

The following statements outline healthcare IT needs:

• the data have to be verified and signed as soon as it's entered into the system,
• the data need to be well secured against unauthorized modification, destruction, theft and unauthorized access,
• the data that are obviously of no use in a particular case have to be filtered out but the user must be informed that such data exist (medical conclusion may be nevertheless influenced by it's existence, the doctor may then additionally request access to such data),
• there has to be means available to communicate the data among healthcare providers either for the case of emergency care of the pacient or for the case of complete care transfer,
• the data have to be archived and safeguarded in a way that leaves no doubt about it's originality and validity because the data may server as an evidence.

The healthcare systems usually keep other data that are related to the provision of healthcare service, e.g.

• the healthcare bill
• statistical processing

Several groups of specialists are working on systems and standard to support these processes. The majority of these endeavours are aimed at classification (ICD, SNOMED and LOINC code lists and UMLS composite semantic network) and at communication formalized data (e.g. biochemical investigation of blood and urine). These groups include:

• CEN TC251 - technical committee 251 of the European Commitee for Standardization (CEN)
• Health Level 7 Inc. - USA-based international community
• OpenEHR - international association that specifies the way of formalizing data in the field of healthcare.
• DASTA - DAta STAndard of the Czech Ministry of Health; specifies the format and structure that is commonly used for communication among czech healthcare providers