Health Telematics (AIM) Final Report
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TRILOGY

Healthcare Telematics Services Implementation Framework

Project Code:   A2055
Project value:  3800 KECU
EC contribution:  1413 KECU
No of partners:  4
No of countries:  3
Duration:  18 months
Contact:
Dr. Andreas J. Weser
DeTeBerkom GmbH
Voltastraße 5
D-13355 Berlin, Germany
Tel.: +49-30-46.70.13.60
Fax: +49-30-46.70.13.54
E-mail: weser@deteberkom.de

Overview

The mission of the TRILOGY project was to establish an Open European Framework for the provision and exploitation of Healthcare Telematics Services derived from and validated against the practical results of several Operational Trials in five complementary healthcare domains, building on the work of key AIM main phase projects. TRILOGY was in particular to contribute to the integration, interconnection and validation of a reasonable large number of key projects, the provision of a Framework for the implementation of Healthcare Telematic Services and the creation of awareness and dissemination of results.

Purpose, Objectives

The background for this project was the endeavour to interlink the "islands" in the different regions, utilising telematics tools for healthcare. There was, hence, a need to develop a platform for interlinking of various computer systems to allow compatibility and interoperability. This, in turn, would allow to offer the provision of health telematics networks and services.

TRILOGY was a collaborative project partly financed by the AIM Programme, involving 11 Telematics suppliers, hospitals, regions and others across twelve countries, ten AIM/ENS projects, and five health domains.

The project followed the objectives of the AIM 1993 Call: the integration, interconnection and validation of a number of key projects; the provision of a Framework for the implementation of Healthcare Telematics Services and the implementation of already developed telematics services rather than new research, taking them through to industrialisation and exploitation, speeding time to market.

The three building blocks of the project were:

  1. practical implementations (operational trials) based on some 15 regions in 5 domains, 10 AIM projects and 12 countries;

  2. the Framework which should provide platforms to enable the analysis, planning, design, technology assessment and validation in the implementation;

  3. exploitation to provide continuity for the TRILOGY initiative through business planning tools and guidelines, awareness creation and information access.

The TRILOGY project aimed to provide a focus and a forum in Healthcare Telematics across Europe in the areas of:

On one hand, the Framework provides the opportunity to identify business related areas for telematics services in health, and on the other hand, it enables service providers to understand the business context of the Region for which services are to be developed, to access a set of relevant reference knowledge, to enable the effective modelling and specification of these services, and to make recommendations for implementation and evaluation.

TRILOGY aimed to provide:

All of which means:

Results

The Operational Trials had been running in the following regions:

To achieve the mission of the project, the activities were structured in three levels:

The bottom level corresponds with practical implementations, referred to as Operational Trials. Thirteen different regions and clusters of Healthcare Telematic sites in Europe were designated in order to integrate complementary domains and applications. The domains represented were: clinical pathology, drug prescription, medical imaging, transplant applications and Healthcare administration. Ten key projects from AIM, ENS and elsewhere were included.

On that basis results of analysing the design, technology and validation of Healthcare Telematic Services across all domains were condensed in a "Framework", which became the input for the top level, the exploitation level with the objective to support the business planning process through business planning tools and references for all sector actors involved, awareness creation and comprehensive information basic services. The work programme of TRILOGY was accomplished by workshops and other information events.

TRILOGY provided effective co-ordination of these pilots from which the impact of their value to the European Healthcare market could be demonstrated. The individual projects gained access to results of many related project groups and were enabled to implement strategic solutions in terms of openness, security and compatibility more efficiently.

One main outcome was the integration of the work of three different projects in the Project Line "Telemedicine Applications Framework" addressing related areas of health telematics: FEST - supporting the provision of Healthcare telematic services through a Hypertext Question Set and an extensive Body of Knowledge, NUCLEUS - delivering an architecture for distributed Multimedia patient records and SHINE - addressing the wider enterprise and business issues of delivering Healthcare across a region. The TRILOGY Framework covers all aspects of Telemedicine and regional Healthcare including the business planning process. It does not provide the user with answers but helps to find the answer by structuring the tasks and pointing to references of related solutions. It provides the context, recommendations on analysis methods, and guidance on the issues to be addressed when developing telematic services.

TRILOGY represents an essential milestone towards the broad implementation of innovative Healthcare Telematics Services on a new level of quality and coverage. It has brought together complementary, international scientific and technical teams and it has highlighted the need to move from isolated singular prototypes towards Healthcare Telematics (HCT) products which need to be reliable, accessible and viable in a competitive environment. The results of TRILOGY, both in terms of deliverables and organisational structures, are taken up by a new type of upcoming European HCT initiatives such as, for example, the CHIN-project (Co-operative Health Information Networks for the Community) or Co-Co (Cooperation and Continuity).

Obstacles and difficulties

Although the results of the project are available in form of deliverables, it is not in a form allowing a wide dissemination. However, interested parties are invited to contact the authors. One difficulty is the maintenance of such a framework after the end of the project.

List of Deliverables

Year 1

Year 2

List of Participants

Prof. Georges De Moor
Ramit V.Z.W.
De Pintelaan 185
B-9000 Gent, Belgium
Tel.: +32-9-240.34.36
Fax: +32-9-240.34.39
Dr. Rudy Mattheus
Primis-V.U.B.
Researchpark Zellik Kranenberg 6
B-1731 Brussels (Zellik), Belgium
Tel.: +32-2-463.19.30
Fax: +32-2-463.17.06
Mr. Richard van den Heuvel
SIG Services B.V.
Maliebaan 50
NL-35008 SC Utrecht, The Netherlands
Tel.: +31-30-34.56.30
Fax: +31-30-34.51.72

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