COCIR welcomes European Commission’s adoption of recommendation on European EHR exchange format

Feb 7 2019

COCIR welcomes the adoption of the European Commission’s recommendation on a European Electronic Health Record (EHR) exchange format. As Europe’s leading trade association for the medical imaging, radiotherapy, health ICT and electromedical industries, COCIR is pleased that the Commission has taken up COCIR’s recommendations extend the information exchange of patient summaries and ePrescriptions to include laboratory test results, medical discharge reports and images/medical imaging reports.

Digital health solutions play a critical role in the delivery of integrated care, but these need to be truly interoperable to be fully effective. To make interoperability a reality, we need the support and trust of the European Commission, Member States and other stakeholders within the healthcare community.

While COCIR supports this recommendation, it urges the European Commission and the Member States to allocate sufficient funds and resources in order to accelerate implementation and uptake thus delivering an effective tool for interoperability.

The continuing slow deployment of interoperable digital health solutions in Member States remains a barrier for scaling up integrated care and bringing its benefits to citizens. Member States need to deploy this recommendation at national and regional levels, to allow healthcare professionals and citizens to securely access and use relevant health data, including in cross-border exchange.”

Nicole Denjoy, COCIR Secretary General

COCIR notes the ongoing work on further elaborating the European EHR exchange format through a joint coordination process. It supports the consideration of using the well-recognized Integrated Health Enterprise profiles. In addition, COCIR notes that long-standing interoperability standards already exist today and the Commission and Member States should leverage these standards to encourage their implementation across the EU.

COCIR remains committed to further work with the European Commission, the Member States and relevant stakeholders to ensure the effective implementation of this Recommendation and is very much looking forward to the next steps in supporting a more interoperable framework to accommodate integrated care models and to fully realize the potential of the Digital Single Market.