The Interoperability area is participating in the EU MODEX in Estonia, presenting an app for accessing online patient summaries which can be used in emergencies

The Fundació TIC Salut Social’s Interoperability Area participated in the EU-MODEX exercise on the island of Saaremaa, Estonia which took place from the 11 to the 13 April. Medical experts from various European countries put their skills to the test in simulations of different extreme emergencies.

The Foundation participated with a mobile app developed by its Interoperability Area team as part of the Trillium II project, which aims to display the International Patient Summary on a data server in real time using FHIR technology.

FHIR is the HL7 standard which is beginning to be used to perform interoperability tasks between different computer systems in the healthcare field.

The very positive experience in making progress in terms of interoperability has received excellent feedback from the professionals who took part. Both patients and clinical professionals agree that this is a good starting point to be able to access clinical data quickly during difficult periods such as a natural disasters and other emergencies. Meanwhile, it was a chance to evaluate the app during the simulation of a real emergency scenario. Eventually, the app will be used to access a patient’s health data during any emergency situation.

The Foundation’s Interoperability Area team attended the various MODEX coordination meetings, creating the clinical cases on the FHIR server for use during the simulations.

During the simulation the teams worked non-stop on the roleplay for 48 hours, while the Foundation’s team shared the duties of creating cases, uploading data to the server and monitoring cases on-site. Meanwhile, the colleagues on the ground were able to ask for tele-assistance from the Foundation’s other technicians.

This invaluable experience has highlighted the importance of a tool such as the one developed by the Fundació Tic Salut Social. Not only for the vital information which  nurses and doctors can access while they provide the emergency care, but also for the use of standards and codes which allow information to be displayed in different languages in a relatively simple way. This would prove extremely useful when an international team is operating in a country where they are unable to speak the language. The experience was very positive since testing the app during a simulation highlighted potential areas for improvement.

For a summary of the exercise, click on the link