Europe: Twelve countries sign up for cross-border health system

Twelve EU member states have joined together to take part in a cross-border interoperability health system.

The European Patient Smart Open Services (epSOS) project will allow doctors from all 12 countries to access medical records quickly and easily, even if a patient falls ill whilst travelling in another member state.

The scheme is designed to connect e-health systems between Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden and the UK, and is set to run as a trial for three years.

The pilot scheme will:

• analyse the current situation in each of the 12 countries
• explore any legal issues - eg, patient privacy, the implications for healthcare providers when writing journal entries
• develop technical specifications to use personalised health data securely
• set up a test environment to evaluate the findings.

These four stages will result in better communication between the 12 participating countries, which will enable cross-border healthcare and improve patient safety.

The European Commission is funding half of the costs of the project.