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Updated: Jun 3, 97 |
HANSA | |
| Healthcare advanced network system architecture |
| Project Nr: | HC 1019 | Group: IV | Project Duration: 24 months |
| Key words: | Integration ; Middleware ; Platform ; DHE (Distrbuted Hospital Environment) ; NICE (Network Independent Communication Environment) | ||
| Category: | Advanced Telematics Health Network Architecture | ||
| Summary: | Aims to federate existing health care systems on the top of a middlewareplatform of common services. The project will not concentrate onbuilding new applications but it will integrate new functionalities andexpand the existing integration platform. | ||
| Mission: | Healthcare in Europe is based on a variety of networks whose individual centres perform different but increasingly integrated functions. In order not to lose investments already made in these networks HANSA's mission is to federate integration of different systems on an open middleware which will be a platform of common services. These modules of information systems with specific solutions to healthcare will help to provide cost-effective care of high quality. | ||
| URL: | www.effedue.com/hansa | ||
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| Name of Institution | City+Postal Code | Country | Region |
|---|---|---|---|
| GESI srl | Roma I-00195 | Italy | IT6 |
| Novabase | Lisbon, 1000 | Portugal | PT13 |
| HISCOM | Leiden 2316-XA | The Netherlands | NL34 |
| Intrasoft | Athens, 115 25 | Greece | GR3 |
| SPRI | Stockholm, 10726 | Sweden | SE01 |
| University Hospital of Gießen | Gießen, D-35392 | Germany | DE72 |
| Consorci Hosp. de Catalunya | Barcelona, 08007 | Spain | ES51 |
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By nature, healthcare organisational structure in all European Countries consists of networks of centres distributed over the territory, characterised by a high degree of heterogeneity and diversity, from the organisational, logistic, clinical and even cultural perspectives. In such overall scenario a huge number of applications (mutually isolated and incompatible) are already installed and operational, effectively supporting specific needs of the users. Under the present circumstances, the fundamental primary need for supporting the evolving requirements of the users is to make it possible such existing (legacy) system to interwork and to evolve towards new open, standard and modular architectures, concurrently securing the investments already made and ensuring the continuity of the work in the organisation.
HANSA has the mission of facilitating such transition, by permitting the federation of the existing 'legacy' systems on top of the common, open DHE middleware, defined and developed under the umbrella of the EDITH/Italy project in Esprit. The DHE represents an open platform of common services, providing all modules of the information system with healthcare-specific functionalities supporting the functional and information interworking of the different applications, even if developed with different technologies and distributed across a network. As a consequence, the activities of the project relate to the installation and the demonstration of the DHE in the environment of 20 hospitals from nine European countries, by integrating samples of the legacy applications already operational in the hospital on top of it. In parallel, national user groups are being organised, the standardisation activities in the field of medical informatics are being supported with a view of facilitating the convergence of users and industries towards the common approach. The HANSA consortium is structured as a federation of 9 National Groups, comprising the main leading actors, both users and industries, in the national healthcare markets. In each country, at least one industry and one hospital are participating. The hospital has the responsibility of integrating and demonstrating the DHE in its live environment, while the main role of the industry consists of analysing the market opportunity and promoting the common solution on the national market. The total funding is 1.5 MECU, corresponding to an average funding of less 50 KECU and an average effort of 1 p/year per participant. Despite such extremely limited resources, the project is proceeding according to the workplan and significant results have been already achieved. It must be pointed out that, during the last plenary meeting (Jun 1996), the Consortium has unanimously decided to put the API of the DHE services on the public domain. The Consortium considers this decision of major relevance on the European scenario, since it makes Hansa as the only group adopting and promoting a common architecture really open and accessible to everybody.
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Users involved According to the objective of demonstrating the DHE middleware in the live environments and of promoting it as a European standard, users play the major role in the HANSA Consortium, which groups more than 20 healthcare organisations and is chaired by a hospital (Università Cattolica - Policlinico Gemelli). In addition to that national user groups are organised, which represent larger fora for discussing the actual requirements and the proposed solutions. Technologies and/or approach used The technological solutions adopted by the DHE middleware are based on industrial standards and permits the evolution of existing legacy systems towards a distributed architecture, characterised by openness and modularity. The installation of the middleware will start from the initial phase of the project, to permit a direct and incremental verification of its compliance with respect to the specific national requirements. Expected benefits for the citizen Federating existing applications, even if mutually heterogeneous and incompatible, on top of the DHE middleware enables the creation of common repositories for the patient data, as well as the efficient interworking of the various units in the organisation. This will facilitate both the improving of the quality of care provided to the patient, and a detailed monitoring of the healthcare expenditure, representing one of the most crucial concerns in all European countries. Expected benefits for the users of the application The DHE middleware is a healthcare-specific platform, on top of which both existing systems can be integrated and new applications can be developed. The main benefit for healthcare actors can be identified in the availability of an homogeneous environment, integrating the different clinical and organisational information. Developers will be facilitated during the whole life-cycle of the information system, thanks to the availability of a set of common services, capable of performing sets of activities, specific of the healthcare application domain. Expected benefits for the European Industries The identification of a common, standard middleware, capable of permitting the integration and interworking of different applications through public interfaces, will permit vertical applications to be more easily installed and adopted by a larger number of users. The size of the market which can be addressed by the individual industries (and particularly by the SME's) will be therefore extended. Contribution to EU-policies Creation of open standards allowing the interoperability of healthcare information systems is time consuming and expensive. In particular in the smaller European countries the scale needed to effectively develop such standards is lacking. Through the involvement of healthcare organisations and industries from 9 European countries, HANSA will contribute in practice to the adoption of common, open solutions enabling vendor independence, flexibility and interoperability across countries. |
| Università Cattolica, Policlinico Gemelli | Rome | Lazio | IT |
| Hospital del Mar | Barcelona | Cataluña | ES |
| Gießen University Hospital | Gießen | Giessen | DE |
| Areteion Hospital | Athens | Attiki | GR |
| Sahlgrenska Hospital | Gotheborg | Vaetsverige | SE |
| Hvidovre Hospital | Copenhagen | Koebenhavn OG Frederiksberg Kom. | DK |
| Leiden Hospital | Leiden | Zeeland | NL |
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