Development of a gateway for interoperability in community-based care: An empirical study

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Information Systems Engineering
• Interoperability Standards

Background:

• Information and communications technology (ICT) is recognized for its potential in sharing community care records.
• Existing systems often lack interoperability, creating a burden of duplicate data entry for professionals.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a gateway system for linking diverse information systems.
• To evaluate the functionality and usability of this gateway through an empirical study.

Main Methods:

• Development of a gateway with healthcare and welfare professionals, featuring data exchange and common sub-systems.
• Implementation of security measures including Transport Layer Security 1.2 and Public Key Infrastructure.
• Utilization of Health Level Seven International, Extensible Markup Language, and Portable Document Format for document standards.
• Empirical study involving 11 scenarios with simulated patients and a questionnaire survey.

Main Results:

• The gateway successfully linked information systems from six different vendors.
• Professionals from eight occupations participated in the empirical study.
• 32 out of 40 surveyed professionals indicated the gateway would eliminate the need for repetitive data input.

Conclusions:

• The developed gateway demonstrates effectiveness in enhancing interoperability between different healthcare information systems.
• The system has the potential to significantly reduce the workload associated with data management in community-based care settings.