The main objective of this application is to support Cyprus efforts to be part of a secure peer-to-peer network allowing the exchange of Patient Summaries and/or ePrescriptions, which will pave the way to reach the following general objectives:
- Enable seamless cross-border care and secure access to patient health information between European healthcare systems, particularly with respect to the exchange of Patient Summary and ePrescription.
- Contribute to patient safety by reducing the frequency of medical errors and by providing quick access to patient health information, as well as by increasing the accessibility of a patient’s own prescriptions, also when abroad.
- Provide medical personnel with life-saving information in emergency situations and reduce the repetition of diagnostic procedures.
The work activities underlying this application implement the main organisational, semantic and technical guidelines and specifications, namely:
- EU General Data Protection Regulation – for organisations and for individuals
- Directive 2011/24/EU on the application of patients’ rights in cross-border healthcare
- Guidelines on an Organisational Framework for eHealth National Contact Point
- Governance model for the eHealth Digital Service Infrastructure during the CEF funding
- Guidelines on minimum/non-exhaustive patient summary dataset for electronic exchange
- Guidelines on ePrescriptions dataset for electronic exchange
- Multilateral legal agreement (as soon as there is a formal endorsement by the eHN)
- The EXPAND revision of organisational, semantic and technical requirements and specifications;
The solution proposed by the current application aims at reaching the Technology Readiness Level 9 – Actual system proven in operational environment – namely by start providing operational eHealth cross border services (PS or eP) by 2022.
The current application provides a quantifiable scenario of services usage to better allow the impact evaluation, namely by clearly identifying known or future population flows that may benefit from the provision of the proposed eHealth services.
Cyprus National Service provision objectives
Cyprus is committed to deploy and provide a cross border eHealth service under the CEF 2015 eHealth time frame (2017 to 2022). The exact timing and range of services that will be provided by Cyprus are reflected in deliverable D1.1 from Activity 1 / Task 1.
Cyprus’s goal is to deliver high quality cross-border healthcare for its citizens living abroad and visiting citizens from other EU Member States. Furthermore, due to the fact of being a tourist destination it’s reasonable to expect that deployment of cross border services will influence on economic growth. In summer season, Cyprus can predict that the usage of this service will be on a daily basis. Making country safer and environment patient friendly, Cyprus is improving daily life not only for its own citizens, but also for citizens from EU countries.
Concretely, when a citizen makes an unplanned cross-border healthcare visit to a health provider in the European Union, the health professional will have access to the person’s Patient Summary and other relevant Electronic Health Record documents.
On the other hand, services ePrescription and eDispensation support the concept that a patient being abroad can receive the equivalent medication treatment that would receive in his/her home country. This means that this service aims the cross border dispensing of ePrescriptions and support the documentation of dispensed drugs. Using Dispensation data from the dispensing pharmacy in the country of temporary stay, the health services, in the home country, can update the medication record of the patient, making health care and prescriptions safer.
Reimbursement services are out of scope of this call and will be solved via a different channel. Therefore, Cyprus will use CEF funds to support cross-border ePrescription/eDispensation service and to facilitate medical interventions with cross border Patient Summary usage, both developed under the epSOS and EXPAND project.
Cyprus aims to operate the following eHealth Information services:
| Service | Role | RANGE | START PROVISION |
| Patient Summary A | Country A (country of citizen affiliation) | National | 2022-Q4 |
| Patient Summary B | Country B (country of treatment) | National | 2022-Q4
|
| ePrescription A | Country A (country that prescribed the medicine) | National | 2022-Q4 |
| ePrescription B (eDispensation) | Country B (country that dispensed the medicine) | National | 2022-Q4 |
According to the Directive 2011/24/EU, Cyprus established the NCP role with all the authority suggested by the cross-border Directive 2011/24/EU. The Cyprus NCPeH will act as the national contact point, adhering to the Directive and ensuring a better and safer cross-border health care (according to Chapter 2, Article 4.2a.). Overall, Cyprus is in line with the objectives of Directive 2011/24/EU and hope that the deployment of eHealth solutions in future shall increase safety and quality of care throughout the EU, notably by: providing immediate clinical information needed in an emergency situation abroad and ensuring continuity of care across EU borders.
The eHealth Network adopted the ePrescription guidelines in November 2014, and guidelines for minimum/non-exhaustive patient summary dataset in November 2013. These guidelines and their successors will be a primary reference for deployment of both services under CEF call in Cyprus. As member of the eHN, Cyprus has agreed to apply Patient Summary, ePrescription guidelines on a national level and follow the “Guidelines on an Organisational Framework for eHealth National Contact Point”. Cyprus’s aim is to organize the NCPeH role as a communication gateway and a mediator for delivering the cross-border services for EU citizens. In compliance with Guidelines on an Organisational Framework for eHealth NCP, Cyprus will set up requirements, core characteristics, responsibilities and duties needed for NCPeH.
While actively participating in eHN and JAseHN, Cyprus aims to act as an active member in the CEF eHDSI Expert group, as well as adhere and cooperate under the “Governance model for the eHealth Digital Service Infrastructure during the CEF funding” endorsed by the eHN.
Cyprus participated and gained significant experience in scrutiny and peer-to-peer tests, scoping cross border Patient Summary, supervised by IHE at the Connectathon in Luxemburg in April 2015, Expanadathon in Lisbon in December 2015, and will also participate in the Connectathon in Bochum in April in 2016. The Cyprus team (the University of Cyprus in collaboration with the Ministry of Health) participated testing their open source software libraries for epSOS and EHR as documented in the following section (2.1).
Cyprus participates in task 6.2. of JAseHN project (ex. legal subgroup of eHN), targeting towards reaching a viable solution concerning the “Multilateral Legal Agreement (MLA)“. Cyprus’s aim is to adopt the MLS as soon as the eHN endorses it.
The eHealth team of the Department of Computer Science of the University of Cyprus is planning to get engaged actively with the OpenNCP Community for development and testing of the NCPeH technical gateway open source implementation. The eHealth team has a long standing expertise in the development of open source solutions and will also draw expertise from the software engineering lab of the University of Cyprus for the development and licencing of open source software as a service solution.