International efforts in implementing national health information infrastructure and electronic health records

Many countries are developing national strategies using information and communication technologies (ICTs) to implement health information infrastructure and electronic health records (EHR), into their medical systems. Efficiency, quality of care and medical error along with new opportunities presented by the technologies themselves have driven this process internationally. Many countries have had spectacular failures costing billions of dollars alongside some amazing successes. There has been very little dialogue internationally about what works and what doesn't work despite the fact that many government and international agencies have placed this key priority on their agendas. The nature of the technologies used promotes cooperation and these innovations in healthcare lend themselves particularly to working together for collaboration and for communication in order to learn best practice from each other. In this paper, I look at some of the national initiatives for developing an information infrastructure for healthcare as well as some of the challenges presented by these very different approaches around the world. We also review briefly the many organizations looking at international standards relating to eHealth and to implementation of electronic health records.