Information Infrastructures within European Health Care

Abstract

This chapter provides an introductory overview of healthcare information systems, followed by a more detailed discussion on two types of core components in a public eHealth infrastructure: e-prescription solutions and governmental patient-oriented platforms. E-prescription solutions support the electronic flow of information for prescribed medications between prescribers, pharmacies and insurers that handle related payments. E-prescription solutions aim for cost containment, enhancement of patient safety, control over doctors’ prescription patterns and process quality assurance. Governmental platforms for patient- or citizen-oriented eHealth services typically offer patients access to general and personalised health information and provide electronic services for communication, self-management, and administrative tasks. These initiatives seek to realize visions of patient-centered care, mobilizing citizens for self-care and disease prevention but are also driven by needs to improve the efficiency of healthcare provision and to overcome existing communication barriers. Both e-prescription and governmental patient-oriented platforms have the potential to transform healthcare delivery, and the empirical cases in this book illustrate several aspects of the transformation processes associated with their realization.