Utilizing IHE-based Electronic Health Record systems for secondary use.

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Medical Research
• Data Management

Background:

• Increasing adoption of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) for primary use.
• Growing volume of electronic documents necessitates secondary use strategies.
• Potential for EHR data in fields like medical research.

Purpose of the Study:

• Define requirements for secondary use of EHR data.
• Analyze an IHE-based architecture's suitability for secondary EHR data use.
• Identify obstacles in secondary EHR data utilization.

Main Methods:

• Deduced eight core requirements from literature and risk analysis.
• Analyzed the IHE profile MPQ (Multi-Patient Queries).
• Extended an IHE-based architecture for cross-patient, cross-domain data sharing.

Main Results:

• Proposed an IHE-based architecture for cross-patient and cross-domain EHR data secondary use.
• Evaluated the architecture against eight core requirements.
• Achieved positive fulfillment of six requirements and partial fulfillment of two.

Conclusions:

• Re-use of electronic medical documents in EHRs holds future potential beyond primary care.
• Secondary use of EHR data is crucial for advancing medical research.
• Further research is needed to optimize secondary EHR data utilization.