Will the EU share health records with the US?

Use of healthcare records

Under an initiative being promoted by the EU presidency, healthcare records in the UK could be shared with the US.

The Spanish Minister of Health and Social Policy, Trinidad Jiménez, met in Washington with her US counterpart, Kathleen Sebelius, and highlighted the desire of the Spanish Presidency of the European Union to push for a strategic bilateral agreement in digital healthcare.

The aim is to create a scenario for clinical information exchange and technical interoperability between the project promoted by the Obama Administration and the European project, EU2010 reported.

Trinidad Jiménez focused on the e-health project that has made Spain the leader in modernising healthcare services by incorporating digital clinical history and electronic prescription projects for public and patient access with the highest implementation levels in the world along with Sweden and Denmark.

"The aim is to create a scenario for clinical information exchange and technical interoperability between the project promoted by the Obama administration and the European project," said the presidency in the statement. The Spanish minister of health and social policy, Trinidad Jiménez, met her US counterpart Kathleen Sebelius in Washington last week to push for the agreement.

Several European countries, including Germany and the UK, have pilot projects for electronic healthcare records. As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act 2009, the US intends to digitise all healthcare records within five years.

Summary Care Records system

One of the main NHS projects for sharing healthcare records is the Summary Care Records system, designed to be accessed by medical staff across England. The Summary Care Record (SCR) is one element of the NHS Care Records Service (NHS CRS), the other element being the Detailed Record.The system is part of the National Project for IT (NPfIT), which has had sustained criticism from IT security experts and doctors.

The Department of Health declined to comment on the EU presidency's push, but did say that the NHS technology office is engaged with international standards organisations, such as Health Level 7, reported ZDNet UK.

In addition, the NHS's IT body Connecting for Health has links with peers in the US, the department added. These include a collaboration with the College of American Pathologists for the SNOMED initiative, a project to create common machine-processable medical terminology for data sharing.

Jodie Humphries

Jodie Humphries graduated from Bath Spa University with a BA Hons in Creative Writing in 2008. She has worked for GDS Publishing for the digital group since July 2009. She has previous experience with writing for the web, running her own website since April 2007.

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