SHARE road map for HealthGrids: methodology

The SHARE(1) project (http://www.eu-share.org) was asked to identify the key developments needed to achieve wide adoption and deployment of HealthGrids throughout Europe. The project was asked to organise these as milestones on a road map, so that all technical advances, social actions, economic investments and ethical or legal initiatives necessary for HealthGrids would be seen together in a single coherent document. The full road map includes an extensive analysis of several case studies exploring their technical requirements, full discussion of the ethical, legal, social and economic issues which may impede early deployment, and concludes with an attempt to reconcile the tensions between technological developments and regulatory frameworks. This paper has been restricted to the technical aspects of the project. SHARE built on the work of the 'HealthGrid' initiative so we begin by, reviewing work carried out in various European HealthGrid projects and report on joint work with numerous European collaborators. Following many successful HealthGrid projects, HealthGrid published a 'White Paper' which establishes the foundations, potential scope and prospects of an approach to health informatics based on a grid infrastructure. The White Paper demonstrates the ways in which the HealthGrid approach supports many modern trends in medicine and healthcare, such as evidence-based practice, integration across levels, from molecules and cells, through tissues and organs to the whole person and community, and the promise of individualised healthcare. SHARE was funded by the European Commission to define a research roadmap for a 'HealthGrid for Europe', to be seen as the preferred infrastructure for biomedical and healthcare projects in the European Research Area.