Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2012 Apr 3:12:28.
doi: 10.1186/1472-6947-12-28.

The use of regional platforms for managing electronic health records for the production of regional public health indicators in France

Marie-Hélène Metzger  1 , Thierry Durand, Stéphane Lallich, Roger Salamon, Philippe Castets
Affiliations

The use of regional platforms for managing electronic health records for the production of regional public health indicators in France

Marie-Hélène Metzger et al. BMC Med Inform Decis Mak. .

Abstract

Background: In France, recent developments in healthcare system organization have aimed at strengthening decision-making and action in public health at the regional level. Firstly, the 2004 Public Health Act, by setting 100 national and regional public health targets, introduced an evaluative approach to public health programs at the national and regional levels. Meanwhile, the implementation of regional platforms for managing electronic health records (EHRs) has also been under assessment to coordinate the deployment of this important instrument of care within each geographic area. In this context, the development and implementation of a regional approach to epidemiological data extracted from EHRs are an opportunity that must be seized as soon as possible. Our article addresses certain design and organizational aspects so that the technical requirements for such use are integrated into regional platforms in France. The article will base itself on organization of the Rhône-Alpes regional health platform.

Discussion: Different tools being deployed in France allow us to consider the potential of these regional platforms for epidemiology and public health (implementation of a national health identification number and a national information system interoperability framework). The deployment of the Rhône-Alpes regional health platform began in the 2000s in France. By August 2011, 2.6 million patients were identified in this platform. A new development step is emerging because regional decision-makers need to measure healthcare efficiency. To pool heterogeneous information contained in various independent databases, the format, norm and content of the metadata have been defined. Two types of databases will be created according to the nature of the data processed, one for extracting structured data, and the second for extracting non-structured and de-identified free-text documents.

Summary: Regional platforms for managing EHRs could constitute an important data source for epidemiological surveillance in the context of epidemic alerts, but also in monitoring a number of indicators of infectious and chronic diseases for which no data are yet available in France.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Number of EHR created and number of consultations per month in the SISRA platform from 2004 to 2011.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Organization of the regional SISRA platform. PEPS: external data storage software.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Organization of the SISRA epidemiological platform.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Comparison of age structure of the general population and patients with an EHR registered in the SISRA platform in 2011.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Journal Officiel de la République Française. Loi n° 2004-806 du 9 août 2004 relative à la politique de santé publique. Journal Officiel du 11 août; 2004.
    1. Groupe de travail-politiques régionales de santé. Les politiques régionales de santé publique - Eléments de constat et préconisations dans le contexte de la loi hôpital-patients-santé-territoires. Haut Conseil de la Santé Publique; 2008.
    1. Friedman D, Parrish R. The population health record: concepts, definition, design and implementation. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2010;17(4):359–366. doi: 10.1136/jamia.2009.001578. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. International Organization for Standardization. ISO/TR 20514: Health informatics - electronic health record - definition, scope, and context. Geneva: ISO; 2005.
    1. Agence des systèmes d'information partagés de santé. Etat des lieux et perspectives des plates-formes régionales de services. Paris: Agence des systèmes d'information partagés de santé; 2009. pp. 1–70.

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources