An eHealth platform for instant interaction among health professionals

In an age where medical collaboration is the key to effective healthcare delivery and continuity of care, the location of experts and the management of their time are affecting the wide deployment of eHealth services. In this setting, the use of instant messaging and presence technologies provides a possible solution. A collaboration platform based on instant messaging and presence technology has been employed to implement flexible and adaptable eHealth services. The platform is characterized by the use of medical device components that currently support real-time and/ or store-and-forward access to spirometry examinations, medical imaging, vital signs, ECG, and auscultation data. Other important features of the platform are eHealth service profiles that entail electronic document templates conforming to HL7's clinical document architecture (CDA), the electronic signing of clinical objects using smart cards, and the use of Object Management Group's (OMG) person identification service (PIDS) to interoperate with clinical information systems. So far, eHealth services profiles have been designed for cardiology and respiratory problems. The storage of clinical data in actively shared episode folders and the flexible messaging services that provide users with feedback, feedthrough, awareness, and notification irrespective of their location, have been immediately embraced by the healthcare community. In the immediate future, eHealth service profiles are expected to be further refined based on user feedback and usage data to support service evolution and thus, lead to even more effective service provision in healthcare.