Brussels, 20 April 2021: Today, COCIR and IHE Europe are releasing their joint publication “mHealth: Joint Recommendations for an effective deployment”. This report highlights the vital importance of maximising mHealth interoperability in order to fully realise the benefits for patients and health systems.
Both COCIR and IHE Europe are long-standing champions for the value of interoperability in healthcare. This latest report provides a series of recommendations aimed at the European Commission, Member States and other key stakeholders with the goal of helping accelerate the uptake of mHealth in Europe.
COCIR Secretary General Nicole Denjoy says “In a continuation of COCIR and its members’ longstanding commitment to interoperability, we are delighted to be able to leverage the support of IHE Europe to enrich our 2020 publication. They have provided us with relevant, concrete use cases that highlight how interoperability in practice actively supports smooth and seamless care provision services”. She continues “A far greater degree of interoperability between mHealth solutions and the broader health ecosystem is essential if we are to achieve effective deployment and rapid scaling-up. Improving the availability and accessibility of health data is essential to providing high-quality care and to driving the new insights that will lead to better health outcomes”.
“IHE-Europe readily worked together with COCIR on creating an updated version of the recommendations for an effective deployment of mHealth by adding a set of mobile health use cases and information on related IHE Profiles.” says Andreas Klingler, vendor Co-Chair of IHE-Europe. He added “IHE has released numerous mHealth related IHE Profiles in the recent time. Many of them making use of the HL7 FHIR standard, which greatly eases the implementation of interoperability in vendor’s products, when done in the right way. IHE Profiles have been proven for 20 years in guiding vendors to ensure interoperability, especially also via the possibility to test them at IHE Connectathons. This latest joint COCIR and IHE report is testimony to that IHE does this also for mHealth. ”
To help build the recovery and ensure the resilience of our health systems, it is vital that policy makers and health systems make the right decisions and investments to ensure best value.
Interoperability will play a central role in the ongoing digital transformation of healthcare and in the successful deployment of new mHealth services that will raise the bar for patient empowerment. In addition, the realisation of the European Health Data Space will create new opportunities for health research and innovation.
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About COCIR
COCIR is the European Trade Association representing the medical imaging, radiotherapy, health ICT and electromedical industries. Founded in 1959, COCIR is a non-profit association headquartered in Brussels (Belgium) with a China Desk based in Beijing since 2007. COCIR is unique as it brings together the healthcare, IT and telecommunications industries.
www.cocir.org
About IHE- Europe
The mission of IHE- Europe is to improve patient care by advancing the interoperability of healthcare IT systems and the appropriate sharing of relevant information. Towards that end, IHE- Europe conducts education, testing, demonstrations and other activities promoting the deployment within Europe of systems compliant with the IHE Technical Frameworks developed by IHE International.
IHE- Europe also recruits healthcare professionals and solution developers to participate in the development of these specifications and promote their appropriate use in Europe. IHE- Europe interacts with relevant governmental and non-governmental organisations in Europe. It also maintains close contacts with similar initiatives around the world.
www.ihe-europe.net
For more information, contact:
Nicole Denjoy
COCIR Secretary General
Tel: +32 (0)2 706 8961
denjoy@cocir.org
Colin Mackay
COCIR Communications Senior Advisor
Tel: +32 (0) 473 43 07 52
press@cocir.org
Martina Szucsich
IHE-Europe Secretariat
martina.szucsich@ihe-europe.net